


LIBRARY OF CONGRESS. 

Chap.IE2-2>Copyriglit No.. 

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UNITED STATES OF AMERICA. 





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THE FIRST THANKSGIVING 




MASSASOIT^-^ 


A 

EOMAJSTTIO STOEY OF THE lYDIAHS 
OF HEW EHGLAHD 


]/ 

ALMA HOLMAN BUETON 

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ILLUSTRATED BT GEORGE W. BARD WELL 




THE MORSE COMPANY 
NEW YORK 



Copyright, 1896, 

Bv Alma Holman Burton. 


PKEFAOE 


In writing this simple narrative, the author has 
attempted to give the young reader some idea of 
a race that is fast disappearing from view. 

The Story of Massasoit and his kinsmen is but a 
short story of the Indians of the United States. 
The childhood of Massasoit might have been that 
of any other Red Man, who had roamed at will 
through the forest. And when, as a great sachem, 
he donned his royal mantle to welcome the Pil- 
grims, he only did as other chiefs had done, when 
the winged ships touched upon their shores. 
Among all the Indian tribes, there was a dim tra- 
dition that a Paleface would one day come to 
banish pestilence and famine, and bring eternal 
summer to the woodlands. 

The mysterious muskets, the magic plows, the 
whirling windmills, and other alluring devices of 
the strangers, seemed to the simple savage but the 
emblems of divinity, and it was, perhaps, still in 
the belief, that some way, the old tradition would 
be fulfilled that Massasoit, friend of the White 
Man, went to his last long sleep 
1 


2 


PREFACE. 


But hardly had the echoes of the funeral wails 
died away among the hills, before the tragedies of 
the Pequods were repeated with the people of 
Massasoit. 

The death of Wamsetta, the tragic end of Pom- 
etacum and of Canonchet, the undoing of Anna- 
won, after he had delivered the wampums of the 
last chief to his victor — all came like the tocsins of 
destruction to the tribes in the Land of the Bays. 
Some fled through hidden paths to await, beyond 
the Alleghanies, the coming of their foes ; some 
threaded the forests to the banks of the St. Law- 
rence to return in after years with fire and blood ; 
while the few who remained behind, mingled with 
the negroes as vagrants and outcasts upon their 
ancestral soil. 

The author has devoted several pages to the 
early Colonial life of the Puritans, that the reader 
may better understand how even the highest type 
of Christian citizenship could not make a place for 
the Indian. She has closed the narrative with the 
'French and Indian war, because, with the fall of New 
France, the battles of the frontiers ceased. The 
war-whoops died away in the distance ; and only 
the pine-trees of New England remember to chant 
a solemn requiem to the fallen heroes of the forest. 

The Author. 


CONTENTS 


Chap. Page 

I An Indian Baby ..... 7 

II An Indian Boy ..... 13 

III The Sachem - - - - - - 21 

IV The Council Fire ----- 29 

V Fishing and Trapping - - - - 34 

VI Massasoit ...... 41 

VII The Fall Hunt - - - - - - 46 

VIII A Hunter’s Story ----- 56 

IX Tradition op the White Men - - - 61 

X The Coming op the White Men - - 69 

XI Massasoit, the King - - - - - 76 

XII The Plague ------ 81 

XIII The Pilgrims - - - . . - 88 

XIV Plymouth ------ 93 

XV An Exchange op Visits - - - - 98 

XVI Thanksgiving 107 

XVII The Medicine Men - - - - - 113 

XVIII Weymouth - - - - - - 119 

XIX Merrymount - - - - - - 128 

XX The Puritans - - - - - 133 

XXI The Narragansettb and the Pequods - - 137 

XXII The Pequod War 144 

XXHI Miantonomo - - - - - - 151 

XXIV- The Dutch and the French - - - 156 

XXV The United Colonies op New England - - 161 

3 


4 


CONTENTS 


Chap. 


Pagb 

XXVI 

Church and School 

- 1G9 

XXVII 

Praying Towns - - - - 

175 

XXVIII 

King Alexander . . - - 

- 181 

XXIX 

King Philip .... 

187 

XXX 

King Philip’s War 

- 193 

XXXI 

King Philip’s War {Con.) 

199 

XXXII 

King Canonchet .... 

- 206 

XXXIII 

Weetamoe and Annawon 

211 

XXXIV 

The Charters .... 

- 218 

XXXV 

The Royal Governor - 

225 

XXXVI 

The Witches .... 

- 230 

XXXVII 

On the French Frontiers 

236 

XXXVIII 

Pirates ..... 

244 

XXXIX 

French and Indian Wars 

253 

XL 

The Last Indians op New England - 

- 262 


ILLtrSTEATlONS 


The First Thanksgiving - . . . 

Here Bright Eyes lay swinging among the branches 
The startled deer sprang from the river 
“Massasoit!” he cried at last 
Moshup laughed as he waded out in the sea to up- 
set them ..... 

There was joy at setting foot on land once more - 
The footsore messenger from Weymouth fell faint- 
ing at the gate of the town - 
Roger Williams pleads with Canonicus 
Boston seemed a splendid city - 
The proud chief refused to go 
In an instant hundreds of bullets and arrows came 
whizzing from the thickets - 
As Philip ran he was shot through the heart by an 
Indian ...... 

Gov. Andros surrendered and was thrown into 
prison ..... 

Maj. Waldron sprang from his bed and drove his 
foes before him with his sword 
The Pirates ..... 

Death of Chocorua - - - . - 


Frontispiece 
Facing page 10 
“ “ 36 

“ “ 43 

“ “ .66 

“ “ 96 

“ “ 122 

“ “ 142 

“ “ 166 

“ “ 184 

“ “ 201 

“ “ 212 

“ “ 227 

“ “ 237 

“ “ 246 

“ “ 266 


5 




THE STOHY OF THE INDIAKS OF 
NEW ENGLAND. 


CHAPTER I. 

AN INDIAN BABY. 

A VERY long time ago many tribes of Indians 
dwelt in a land which they called ‘‘The Land of 
the Bays.^^ 

No spot on all the vast continent of America was 
more favored than this. 

First, there were many bays where canoes 
might safely glide in search of fish. 

There were Casco, Saco, Penobscot, Massachu- 
setts, Cape Cod, Buzzards, Narragansett and many, 
many other smaller bays playing hide-and-seek 
among the headlands of its coast. 

Then its sandy beaches were full of clams and 
lobsters, its marshes resounded from morning till 
night with the cries of wild fowl, and tangled for- 
ests hid the very choicest of game. 

The Indians who claimed this beautiful country 
7 


8 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


all belonged to the great Algonquin nation ; but 
they were divided into many tribes, each having a 
sachem or chief of its own. The most powerful 
tribes were the Tarratines, the Massachusetts, the 
Wampanoags, the Narragansetts, the Pequods and 
the Mohegans. Barbarous names enough these 
seem to be when written out in black and white, 
but spoken in the language of the Indians they 
sounded like the murmur of pine trees or the gur- 
gling of brooks, so musical they were. 

Can you picture these people in your mind ? 
They are tall, slight and agile, eyes jet black, hair 
straight and black, skin copper-colored, face some- 
times gloomy and sometimes noble and mild. 
Dressed in skins and armed with bow and arrow, 
they flit in and out of the forests so stealthily, and 
skim over the water so swiftly in their light canoes, 
that it is difficult really to know anything about 
them. 

So we must find an Indian baby to study day 
by day, just as we would our own little baby 
brother. And surely there never was a more in- 
teresting baby than the little Indian, Bright Eyes. 

His father was a great chief or sachem, who 
dwelt on the east bank of the Taunton river, near 
the lovely spot where its waters empty into Nar- 
ragansett Bay. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


9 


When this baby^s eyes were first opened, they 
looked straight into the face of a loving squaw 
mother. Hers was not a handsome face, to be 
sure, after our way of thinking. The small eyes 
were far apart, the forehead was low under the 
coarse black hair, the mouth large, and the skin a 
reddish copper in color. But there is no doubt, if 
this wrinkled bit of a baby could think at all, it 
thought this face was beautiful ; for love was 
there, and even an Indian baby knows what the 
smile of love is. 

The first thing Bright Eyes knew about life and 
its troubles was a plunge, once, twice, three times, 
into a cold stream of water, which fairly took his 
breath for a moment. But before he had his 
mouth in shape for a cry, he was wrapped up, as 
snug as a bug in a rug, in a beaver skin and laid 
away in a quiet corner of the wigwam to sleep. 

This wigwam was a tent which the squaw 
mother had made. She bent long, straight sap- 
lings round like an arbor with both ends stuck 
into the ground. Then she covered them inside 
and out with mats, and hung a mat at the door to 
keep the wind out. Straight overhead was an 
opening where the smoke escaped from the fire 
built on the floor in the middle of the room. 
Bright Eyes loved to watch the blaze of this fire. 


10 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


and to smell the venison cooking in the great, 
earthen pot. Hi, how good it did smell ! 

In warm May weather he was tied, with the fra- 
grant ribbons of linden tree bark, in a cradle of 
thin wood. It was soft with sweet grass from the 
meadows, gay with porcupine quills and shell 
beads and rattles. It hung on the bough of a tree 
near the field where his mother worked. 

Here Bright Eyes lay swinging, among the 
branches, long hours at a time. If he cried it did 
not matter ; he had to learn to be patient. The 
blue sky smiled down upon him, the balmy breezes 
brought kisses from the sea, the pine-trees told 
stories in very solemn whispers. Squirrels, with 
tails in air, whisked madly in and out among the 
branches overhead, as if to say, “ Don’t you think 
that you could catch me ? ” Birds sang to their 
mates in the nests ; but little Bright Eyes was 
quite sure they were calling to him, and was so 
busy listening to all the voices of the forest that he 
had very little time to cry. His cradle hung so 
that he could see the green hillside with a bubbling 
brook, and the wigwams along the edge of the 
river. He saw his patient mother at work. She 
carried wood from the forest for the fire. She 
dipped up water from the spring in a bucket made 
of bark. She pounded the last year’s dry corn to 



HERE BRIGHT EYES LAY SWINGING AMONG THE BRANCHES, 





OF NEW ENGLAND. 


11 


make cakes, which she wrapped in leaves and 
baked in hot ashes. 

When the leaf of the white oak was the size of a 
mouse’s ear, she hoed the ground with a clam- 
shell and dropped herrings into the holes that the 
corn might grow strong and green. 

There was much for Bright Eyes to see from his 
perch in the tree. But sometimes the sky grew 
black. The winds rushed with a roar through the 
pine trees. The tides swept in from the bay and 
tossed the spray high into the air. Then straight 
into the wigwam went little baby, cradle and all. 
Did Bright Eyes cry at that? Not a bit of it. He 
crooned to the rain as it pattered on the roof of 
mats. He sucked his chubby fist and set himself 
to gazing at the strings of yellow squash and the 
rows of red, white and blue corn which hung on 
the walls. The pictures, embroidered with colored 
porcupine quills, were very curious, and the deer 
heads, eagle claws and bear claws pleased him 
immensely. 

But at the back of the wigwam, high up where 
no rude hands could touch it, was an odd little 
bundle which Bright Eyes could never make out. 
It was such a dirty little bundle of brown skins ; 
and yet it was something very precious. At early 
dawn on hunting days his sachem father stood be- 


12 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


fore it, lifting up his hands, and calling out in a 
loud voice ; and sometimes a strange-looking man 
in paints and feathers and wampum beads danced 
before it and sang and shouted to it as if he were 
going mad. This was the powwow priest, and the 
bundle of dried skin was a sort of god which 
brought good luck in the chase or the warpath. 

Yonder, near the doorway of the wigwam, hung 
bunches of black hair. There was a long row of 
them, and warriors often came into the lodge to 
gaze at them. They counted on their fingers, one, 
two, three, four, up to ten ; then they shut both 
hands and coimted the fingers over again. Twenty 
long black locks of hair — the scalps torn from 
the bleeding heads of warriors killed in battle ! 

Alas, what castle of Bluebeard was ever worse 
than this ? And yet there lay this innocent little 
pappoose wishing he might have the black bunches 
for playthings. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


13 


CHAPTER II. 

AN INDIAN BOY. 

Bright Eyes got into mischief as soon as he was 
old enough to toddle about on his unsteady legs. 
He tangled the long grasses with which his mother 
was weaving nets to catch the shining fish. 

He stumbled into the thin, brittle rinds of the 
linden trees, which she was sewing into corn bags 
with a needle of bone and threads from the fiber 
of an elm-tree. He broke a drinking-cup made 
from a dried squash. He cracked some earthen 
pots which had cost a great deal of wampum money. 
“Hi, bad pappoose cried his mother. She 
scolded the little busybody, but she never whipped 
him. He was to be a great warrior some day, and 
must never know what fear of anybody living was. 

When Bright Eyes grew yet stronger, he ran 
about the village, playing leap frog and wolf with 
his mates, jumping, running and wrestling. 

As soon as his hands were large enough to hold 
a little bow and arrow, a mark was set for him to 
shoot at. “ Hi, brave pappoose ! if he struck in 
the red spot. “ He will follow the bear to its cave ! 


14 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


He will bring back a deer to the lodge ! He will 
win scalp locks for his girdle ! ” Thus shouted 
his mother as she watched him at his games. 

He could soon swim like a fish, dive like a beaver, 
climb like a bear and run like a deer. 

Sometimes when he was plunging into the cool 
river he fancied he was a beaver. Then he clutched 
at the mud with his hands and feet, piled up 
mounds on the water’s edge, and ran in a wrig- 
gling fashion on all fours, spreading out his mouth 
to take in the twigs and pebbles to build his beaver 
lodge. 

He knew all about the habits of the beaver, and 
often lay on the limb of an overhanging tree watch- 
ing them as they built their village. This was 
something like a log rolling, and the whole com- 
munity joined in the work. But laying up provis- 
ions for winter was almost always a family alfair. 
Father and Mother Beaver and their two or three 
children worked busily to provide for the time 
when the trees would be stripped of their tender 
leaves. 

The old beavers gnawed by turns at a maple or 
a poplar, and sometimes the younger ones tried 
their teeth. 

They sat on their hind legs and cut all around 
the tree, cutting deeper on the side it was to fall. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


15 


Finally the trunk began to crackle, then there was 
a crash and the whole beaver family plunged into 
the pond, where they kept as still as mice till they 
were sure the noise of the falling tree had brought no 
Indian trapper. Then all came out of their hiding- 
place and began to lop off the branches and carry 
them to the pond, where they sank them in a pile 
near the lodge. They carried the smaller branches 
on one fore leg and limped ofF on the other three ; 
they pushed the larger limbs with their bodies, 
grasping now and then with their powerful teeth 
to guide them. 

It was a sad thing when a beaver became old 
and toothless. Unable to borrow and ashamed to 
beg, he began to steal the cuttings of his neighbors, 
and was sure to be found one day gashed in the 
side. 

Once the father of Bright Eyes found a very old 
and toothless beaver in his trap, and he said, “It 
was just as well for this beaver to die in a trap, for 
see, he has no teeth and would soon have been 
killed by his fellows for stealing.’’ 

Once Bright Eyes heard a sound just like an 
Indian baby’s cry. He followed the noise and 
found two little beavers hungry and alone. They 
wanted their mother. Bright Eyes searched all 
through the neighboring wood, and at last found 


16 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


the old beaver fast in a trap. He felt so sorry for 
the lonesome little babies that he set the mother 
free, and she went limping back to her lodge. 

Sometimes Bright Eyes was a bear, with his 
home in a hollow tree, and many a search was 
made to find the truant. He robbed birds’ nests 
and turtles’ nests, and cooked the eggs in bunches 
of burning leaves. One of his games in the vil- 
lage was the “ crooked path.” A dozen little mis- 
chief-makers, all naked, but a string tied around 
their fat, bulging bodies, stood in a row. Each 
grasped with his right hand the belt-cord of the 
one in front of him. Then off they moved in a slow 
trot, singing as they went. They trudged in and 
out among the trees, through the puddles and 
around the wigwams. If some old woman was 
pounding her corn, the stumbling line hurried past 
her in a circle. Each left hand seized some corn 
until the squaw was out of patience. But when 
she ran to catch them they were off to the woods 
like squirrels, which hang chattering and barking 
from the branches overhead. 

Those were glad days for Bright Eyes. They 
were school-days, too, with all Nature for an open 
book. The trees, with mosses creeping over their 
gnarled branches, the storms spreading thick man- 
tles over the dancing stars, the winds blowing from 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


17 


the four quarters of the earth — he knew them well. 
Had his mother not told him how Kabeyun, the 
West Wind, was the ruler of all the winds ? They 
obeyed him when he whistled 0-ho-oo-ho-o ! 

Wabun, the East Wind, brought the rosy dawn, 
and called to the deer and to the hunter as the 
light rose from over the morning waters. The 
North Wind dwelt in his lodge of snowdrifts up 
among the icebergs. He froze the ponds and riv- 
ers, and sent the snowflakes flying through the 
forest. 

The South Wind had his home in never-ending 
summer. He sent the robins and the bluebirds 
northward, and gave the melons, the tobacco and 
the purple grapes that hung along the rivers. 

Bright Eyes knew much of Glooskap, the magi- 
cian. Once this Glooskap was very angry when a 
storm on the sea had spoiled his fishing. He sped 
in rage to the high rock where the storm bird sat, 
and, creeping up behind him, tied his wings so 
that not a breath of air was stirring for a month. 
The sea became like glass, and everything was 
lovely. But after a time a green slime spread over 
its surface, and the fishes were all dying. Then 
swift to the high rock sped Griooskap. He untied 
one wing. That made all things just right. There 
was wind enough, but no tornadoes, as in the 


18 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


olden time, when the storm bird flapped both its 
wings. 

This Griooskap was a wonderful fellow. His ca- 
noe stretched so large that it carried a whole army, 
or shrunk so small that a dwarf could not sit in it 
at ease. He smoked a magic pipe which brought 
all the animals of the forest to his beck and call. 
Indeed, Glooskap’s collection of pipes was one of 
his strong points. He always had one ready to 
bestow as a reward for some service. 

One fine day a whale brought him dry-shod 
from far out in the sea. He gave her a short pipe 
filled with tobacco, and she sailed away again, 
smoking as she went. 

Once, when Bright Eyes’ little sister sat cooing 
on the floor, the squaw mother told how Glooskap 
could not conquer a baby. 

He said he had conquered everything. “ Ah, 
master, there is one whom no one has ever con- 
quered, and never will,” said the squaw. “ Im- 
possible ! ” he said, How dare you ? There is no 
one.” “ It is the baby,” said the squaw. “ There 
it sits, and woe be to the man who interferes with 
it.” Now this master of men and beasts had never 
had a baby, and when he saw the tiny red thing 
sitting there on the floor of the wigwam, sucking 
sugar and paying no heed to a word he had been 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


19 


saying, he called with a smile and bade it come to 
him. Baby smiled, and sucked away at the sugar. 
Glooskap made his voice sweet like the coo of the 
dove, and again hade it come ; but baby did not 
budge an inch. Then the brow of the great mas- 
ter darkened ; he commanded in a voice of thun- 
der that it should come immediately. 

And straightway baby yelled when it heard the 
voice. Then Glooskap used his magic arts. He 
sang the songs which had brought the dead to life 
again, and baby glowed with admiration at his 
motions, and seemed to think it all very fine in- 
deed ; but still never budged from its seat. 

Then Glooskap gave up, in rage and despair; 
and baby sat on the floor of the wigwam saying, 
“goo! goo!^^ and, it is said, the reason a baby 
now says goo, goo is because it remembers the time 
when the master of men, ghosts, witches and 
beasts was overcome by a baby like itself. 

Bright Eyes knew of the giants who dwelt in 
wigwams, high as mountains. They came from 
the chase with a dozen antelopes hanging from 
their belts like squirrels, and swinging two or three 
moose like rabbits in their hands. 

When they returned from their battles in the 
forest their legs were stuck full of pine-trees, with 
here and there an oak or a hemlock. This did not 


20 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


distress them nearly so much as thistles and splin- 
ters distress a common, everyday Indian. 

But with all the stories his mother told him, she 
gave Bright Eyes much good advice. “ Be brave, 
my son,^’ she said, “and face whatever dangers you 
may meet. Your father is a great sachem, but 
you must not think of that. Because he is a chief 
does not mean that you will be one, too. It is the 
man who sweats, who is tired from going on the 
hunt and on the warpath, who becomes a chief 
among his people. 

“ I would not cry if I were to hear that you had 
been killed in battle, surrounded by your foes ; 
but I should be sorry to see you die in your lodge 
like a feeble old woman. Be faithful to your 
friends. Yever desert them on the field of battle. 
Do not run away if they are taken by the enemy. 
Be killed together. So live, little Bright Eyes, 
that you may join the warriors of your people who 
have gone before you to the happy Hunting 
Grounds in the land of the Hereafter.” 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


21 


CHAPTER III. 

THE SACHEM. 

The father of Bright Eyes was a sachem, and 
warriors from all along Cape Cod Bay, Buzzard ^s 
Bay and the east side of Narragansett Bay paid 
him tribute. Their offerings were the first fruit 
of the field and the first game of the forest, which 
they laid at the door of his wigwam. The sachem 
himself was a great hunter. 

He was often gone weeks at a time on the chase, 
and, when he returned, brought back a deer with 
spreading antlers, or a shaggy bear, or strings of 
shining fish. On these occasions Bright Eyes did 
not run to meet his father and ply him with eager 
questions. That was not the custom of the coun- 
try. He waited, without speaking a word, while 
the great chief sat on his mat, eating supper. The 
meat broiled over the coals, and the succotash of 
corn, beans and fish, thickened with the meal of 
acorns, was very good, and the hunter was very 
hungry. He had tasted only parched corn for 
many days, and so he ate a long time. But Bright 
Eyes had learned to be patient, and sat without a 


22 


THE STORY OP THE INDIANS 


word of interruption, till the meal was finished. 
Then the hunter took down his pipe and smoked in 
silence. Not a word did Bright Eyes utter, but 
he looked no end of questions as he sat leaning 
forward on his little mat, his bright eyes fixed on 
his father’s face. 

At last the chief was quite ready to talk. He 
had lain in ambush for the deer at the silver lake 
in the forest. He had shot a noble roebuck 
straight through the heart, as it stooped for the 
morning drink. He had followed the bear to its 
cave, and pierced it where the eyes were shining 
like two torches in the darkness, and it fell with- 
out a groan. He had floated down the river in the 
wake of a mighty sturgeon, and caught it with his 
fishing-line of cedar, while his light canoe spun 
round and round in a circle. How eagerly Bright 
Eyes listened ! How he longed to be a hunter ! 

Now across the bay from the Wampanoags lived 
the Narragansett Indians. They were a brave 
and warlike people, who had always wanted the 
east side of the lovely bay where the father of 
Bright Eyes dwelt, and so the two tribes were 
often at tomahawk edges with each other. 

Once, when war was about to break out with the 
Narragansetts, the father of Bright Eyes painted 
himself black all over, and went naked and alone 


OP NEW ENGLAND. 


23 


into the forest to pray. After many days he came 
back, pale and thin with fasting. He said he had 
dreamed that a war eagle perched on his hand. 
Now to dream of a war eagle was a sure sign of 
victory. And so, from his village on the Taunton, 
the sachem sent fleet messengers to all the tribute 
chiefs within the borders of his country. The 
runners started at early dawn, bearing sticks, 
dipped in blood, to every village. 

Soon the chiefs, with their warriors, began to 
come through the forest. They kept on coming, 
gathering like the clouds from north and east and 
south. They filled the village and crowded along 
the banks of the beautiful river. At evening, 
when all had assembled, the sachem invited his 
guests to a great feast. 

They sat down close together in a circle. It 
was a wonderful sight ! The forest stretched out 
high and dark behind them. The setting sun lit 
up the bay until the waters seemed a sheet of sil- 
ver, and its last rays fell on the host of warriors as 
they sat in a wide circle about a fire. Some wore 
mantles of feathers of brightest hues ; some leg- 
gings of deerskin fringed at the side and a jacket 
of doeskin ; some wore skins tied round the waist 
like blacksmiths’ aprons. Some had their hair 
long and tied behind in a knot ; some had the 


24 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


head bare, except a long scalp lock ; some were 
shaved, except a strip of hair, two or three inches 
wide, running from the forehead over to the nape 
of the neck, cut short and made stiff with paint 
and beards grease so as to stand upright like the 
crest of a warrior^s helmet. The faces of all were 
painted in every imaginable fashion. One had 
white eyebrows with vermilion lips and cheeks ; 
another a blue forehead with blue lips and chin ; 
others had straight streaks of black and white 
paints, and others were marked in red. All glis- 
tened with bear’s grease and whale’s oil. All 
wore ornaments of copper and bone and strings of 
wampum, and scalp locks hung at their girdles. 
All carried weapons which lay at their sides — 
bows and stout arrows tipped with flint, war clubs 
spiked with the points of deers’ horns and gay with 
turkey feathers. There they sat in the sunset. 
Not a word did any speak as the little red Indian 
boys passed meats around in baskets. Bright 
Eyes thought there could not be in all the world 
such noble braves as these, and he wished he 
might have a seat among them instead of serving 
at the supper. 

The great sachem ate nothing. He sat apart 
smoking his pipe in silence. When the feast was 
ended, the pipes were lighted and all the warriors 


01' NEW ENGLAND. 


25 


smoked in silence. Then the sachem rose to his 
feet. His face was painted in blue and crimson, 
on his head was a high crest of feathers. He wore 
a shirt of doeskin embroidered with beads of 
wampum, and leggings of deerskin fringed with 
moose hair. From his shoulders hung a brilliant 
feather mantle. At his wampum belt were all the 
scalp locks he had taken. 

He stood still a moment and looked around the 
breathing circle. There was Lightfoot with his 
band of forty warriors from the Island of Nan- 
tucket. There beyond was Grrey Wolf, his girdle 
black with scalp locks. There was Silver Fox, 
cunning to take his foes in ambush. There were 
Big Turtle and Long Arm, Fighting Tiger and 
Loon Heart, Bed Arm and all his other tribute 
chiefs with their bands of painted warriors. 

Then he told them of the insults heaped upon 
them by the hated Narragansetts, and plead for 
vengeance. He told his dream while fasting in 
the forest, and promised victory if his people would 
take up arms and follow him. 

When the great sachem had finished speaking, 
there was loud applause. Others spoke, and soon 
in a tumult of voices all agreed to go on the war- 
path. Then they hurried for pine knots to feed the 
fire until the hissing flames turned night into day. 


26 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


Then they set up a pole in the ground. They 
made it fast with dirt and stones and formed a 
great circle about it. They whirled around in a 
giddy dance, while the boys and squaws beat time 
on the drums. The sachem leaped within the cir- 
cle. He struck the post with his tomahawk. The 
shouting ceased. The dancers stood still. He re- 
counted, in a loud voice, his own brave deeds and 
those of his ancestors ; the number of prisoners he 
had taken in battle ; the scalps he had torn from 
the heads of his victims. He flourished his tro- 
phies in wampum and arms. He pointed with his 
bow and arrow. He lifted his tomahawk. He 
struggled and leaped like an actor on the stage to 
show how awful the struggle with his enemies had 
been. 

When he had finished the wonderful story, loud 
shouts arose, and the whirling dance went on. 

Then another leaped into the circle. He struck 
the post. Again there was silence while he related 
his own deeds of valor. Again the dance went on 
until another struck the post. This unlucky fellow 
tried to make himself out greater than he was, but 
he had hardly begun to vaunt his prowess, when a 
warrior approached him and threw dirt in his face. 
“ I do this to cover your shame,” he said, “ for the 
first time such a boaster as you sees an enemy he 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


27 


trembles.” So the braggart retired with the gibes 
of all the others ringing in his ears. None dared, 
after that, to boast of what had never happened. 

But there was enough that was true to arouse 
great enthusiasm, and so the dance went on until 
all the chiefs had struck the post. Then they 
pounded the post and kicked it as they intended to 
do to their enemies on the morrow. They acted 
out the coming battle. 

There it was in pantomime, the muster, the 
march, the ambush, the slaughter, the scalping, 
the reception at home by the squaws and the old 
men, the torture and massacre of the prisoners. 

It was a tremendous uproar ! At last the gray 
dawn broke over the scene. All was silence now. 
The powwow priest, with the head of a deer on his 
shoulders, marched out alone to the footpath lead- 
ing to the Narragansett country. He bore aloft 
the sacred bundle of dried skin, and stepped with 
catlike, tread over the autumn leaves. He listened 
to all the sounds of the early morning. The birds 
were beginning their songs. But there was no 
cawing of a crow to be heard, and that was a good 
sign. The cawing of a crow meant that the enemy 
was near. He stooped to watch the ground. A 
slimy frog leaped from the marsh, a squirrel 
scampered through the thicket, but no rattlesnake 


28 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


crawled across the pathway. That was a good 
sign. A rattlesnake meant danger. “The signs 
were right/’ said the powwow. The warriors strip- 
ped off their ornaments, and crept single file 
through the forest to seek their hitter foes. 

They looked neither to the right nor to the left 
for any living thing. IS'o danger now for the 
game ! Every arrow seeks only the breast of the 
foe. 


OF NEW ENGLAND, 


29 


CHAPTER IV. 

THE COUNCIL FIRE. 

After an absence of many days, the great sachem 
and his warriors returned from the warpath. 
They were red with paint and shining with bear’s 
grease. Bloody scalps hung at their girdles, and 
captives marched at their sides with hands tied be- 
hind them. There had been a great battle, and as 
the conquerors came into the village they shouted 
and boasted of the victories they had won. They 
hastened to collect brushwood and make a great 
fire. Long hours they feasted and smoked and 
told tales of the warpath. 

No one otfered the poor captives a morsel of 
food. There they stood, tied to the trees with 
ropes of the willow, and heard how one by one 
their chiefs had fallen. And when the feast was 
over they were stripped of their clothing and 
forced to run the gauntlet. Squaws, old men and 
boys of the village formed in a long, double line. 
The squaws were armed with pot hooks and bones, 
the old men held in their shrunken hands the war 
clubs, and boys who had never shed the blood of 


30 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


any creature larger than a squirrel lifted up their 
sticks — all pelted the prisoners as they fled down 
through the narrow passage. Some of these pris- 
oners had been great warriors among the Narra- 
gansetts, and it was worse to them than death to 
be beaten by squaws and boys of their enemies. 
Whack ! Whack ! Whack ! went the blows as they 
rushed on down the bristling gauntlet line. And 
all the while the hoarse shouts of the women 
mingled with the quavering warcry of the old men 
and the shrill screams of the children. 

Bright Eyes could hardly have mustered courage 
to strike the bleeding warriors, had he not seen his 
mother dealing such awful blows. He was ashamed 
that his heart was softer than a squaw’s. So he 
struck away mightily. But half the time he kept 
his eyes shut. 

After the wretched victims had run the gauntlet, 
they were put to worse treatment. They would 
not let the enemy see that any torture could give 
them pain. Kot a sigh or groan escaped them, 
and they sang their death songs with steady voices 
while they were burned to death, or pinched and 
beaten and shot about the legs and arms with 
arrows. 

Bright Eyes was urged by his father to shoot at 
the prisoners. The first time he bent his bow his 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


31 


heart stood quite in his throat. He did not want to 
hurt the dying men. But he was proud when he saw 
how straight his little arrow stood in the flesh with the 
big one of his father. He drew another arrow from 
the quiver ; then another and another. He sent them 
thick, with eyes wide open and breath coming fast. 
He was thinking only of his skill at shooting. 

That was the way Bright Eyes learned to look 
at suffering. 

Every autumn a great council was held. The 
warriors sat about a fire smoking long pipes and 
looking very grave, and their little sons sat at 
their sides, that they might learn the history of 
their people. Broad bands of wampum belts were 
passed around the circle, and read aloud by the 
chiefs. There were pictures on the belts, worked 
in .colored beads, which told of all the totems in 
the Land of the Bays. Now, these totems were 
the Indians’ coats of arms, with various devices, 
just as the nations of Europe have. England has 
the lion and the unicorn, Russia the bear, Aus- 
tria the eagle, and it was much the same among 
the American Indians. One tribe chose as a badge, 
the wise beaver ; another, the swift hare ; another, 
the cunning fox ; another, the unconquerable bear. 
And these wampum belts told of all the devices 
by which each tribe was known t 


32 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


Then these wampums told of great victories, 
and of mighty warriors who had died on the bat- 
tle-field. But — alas for the pride of the chieftains ! 
— the belts told, too, of defeats and loss of hunting- 
grounds. That was always hard to read before 
the eager boys who listened. 

The more Bright Eyes heard of the history of 
his people, the more he longed to do some daring 
thing which might be written down in the wampum 
belts. 

He said that when he had won the feathers of 
the war eagle for his hair, he would go himself on 
the warpath to the hated Narragansetfs. Or, bet- 
ter yet, he would call the clans together, and they 
would steal through the woods to the ocean, pitch 
their tents in the forests along the bays, and all 
the long summer build them a line of boats to 
carry them up to conquer the hostile Tarratines, 
who dwelt on the Kennebec. 

But sometimes, when the campfire flickered, and 
the warriors lay in heavy slumbers. Bright Eyes 
had even bolder plans than these. He whispered 
to himself that he would make peace with the other 
tribes of the Algonquins, with the Narragansetts, 
the Tarratines, the Pequods, the Mohegans, with 
all that spoke the Algonquin language and dwelt 
in the Land of Bays, and they would unite against 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


33 


their common foes. Why should these kindred 
warriors fight and quarrel with one another ? Many 
arrows bound together never could be broken. 
Many warriors, when united, might make war upon 
the hated Mohawks, the “ Man eaters,^’ who dwelt 
on the lakes in the north. There was a shameful 
story written in the wampums how the whole Al- 
gonquin people once had fled before the Mohawks 
like sheep before the wolves in winter. 

All this planning for great conquests kept little 
Bright Eyes very busy. 


34 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


CHAPTER Y. 

FISHING AND TRAPPING. 

Until Bright Eyes was twelve years old, he 
wore only a patch of clothes. Then he was dressed 
much like his father. 

He had a coat of tanned doeskin with two large 
pockets, one before and one behind, and long leather 
stockings fringed along the side. Braided mocca- 
sins of moose-hide were on his feet, turkey feathers 
were in his hair, and a quiver filled with arrows 
hung upon his shoulder. When he saw himself 
dressed in all these garments, he was very proud, 
and walked about with the strut of the warriors. 
He looked with disdain at his little sister, Mioonie, 
who had once been his chosen comrade. Their 
paths were now divided ; his led to war and glory, 
hers to the spring for water and to the brush for 
firewood. 

But not even Mioonie wished her handsome lit- 
tle brother to play with her after the feathers had 
been put in his hair, for now he must learn to do 
as men do. If he stayed about the wigwam he 
would become a squaw man, and there was nothing 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


35 


in the world that all the Indian girls hated like a 
squaw man, who carried wood and water and hoed 
the corn and braided the mats. She wanted Bright 
Eyes to hunt, and to fish, and to learn to shoot so 
well, that when he was on the warpath, he might 
kill more foes than any other Indian. 

One day in the month of August, Bright Eyes 
went with his sachem father to make a canoe in 
the forest. 

They carried stone hatchets, some flint and a 
bag of parched corn. They set out at a brisk pace 
in the early morning, and followed the beaten 
path for a time. Then they turned to the right 
where the underbrush was denser. There was 
plenty of game in these woods. Squirrels and jack- 
rabbits, partridges and bushy- tailed foxes darted 
in and out the thickets, and Bright Eyes wanted 
to shoot at everything he saw. But his father did 
not look to right or left, and hurried on so fast that 
there was no time to take aim at anything. Sud- 
denly the chief paused. He held his finger on his 
lips, and, stooping down, he removed his leggings 
and the moccasins from his feet. Bright Eyes did 
the same. The bushes might catch on them and 
crackle. The two went slower now, and very 
softly. Through an open space in the forest they 
saw at last a winding river. The sunshine played 


36 


THE STORY OP THE INDIANS 


Upon its waters, and they could hear the drowsy 
hum of insects skimming over its glassy surface 
On they crept, now hardly breathing. Then they 
saw two red deer standing knee-deep in the water. 
There they stood, with branching antlers, their 
eyes half shut, their ears twitching back and forth 
to frighten off the biting, buzzing insects. Quick 
as a flash the sachem bent his bow. One breath- 
less moment, whiz-z-z went the fatal arrow, sing- 
ing through the hot noon air 1 

The startled deer sprang from the river, splash- 
ing the water into spray. One sped like the wind 
to the thicket ; the other fell back dead upon the 
mossy bank. Bright Eyes sprang, shouting, from 
the ambush, and the birds screamed an answer 
from the branches overhead. Soon the hunters 
stripped the skin from the great red roebuck. 
They struck a fire from the flint and roasted the 
juicy meat from the haunches. 

They had a royal dinner. Then they pushed 
farther into the forest, until they came to where 
the trees stood high and straight, with stems like 
giants. 

Here they set up camp in a tent made from 
the bark of a chestnut-tree. Then the chief set to 
work to make a canoe. First lie fashioned from a 
pine-tree a long frame, bent to a point at each end. 



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OF NEW ENGLAND. 


37 


Then he stripped the thin bark from a large, white 
birch-tree. That was easy to do in the month of 
August when the sap flowed down toward the 
roots. Then he dug in the ground for the roots 
of the sprue e-tree, and made threads as stout as 
whip-cords, and sewed the bark together at the 
ends, and made it fast to the framework. Then he 
smeared the balsam from the pine-trees over all 
the seams and crevices. Then the two went to- 
gether in search of a hedgehog. They found one 
in a hollow tree, rolled up tight, like a ball, and 
its spines stuck out like needles. It was fast asleep, 
but the flint arrows pierced its sides, and it never 
woke up again. The chief plucked its quills, and 
made them red and blue and yellow from the juices 
of roots and berries, and sewed them in circles and 
stars on the bows of the beautiful canoe. And so 
the canoe was finished. It was long and slender, 
and so light that Bright Eyes could carry it on his 
shoulder to the river. And when it was launched 
it flew like a thing of life, dipping its prow, curv- 
ing its sides, and floating off like a swan on the 
water. 

When night came on, and the stars peeped down 
from the sky, the two fishermen pushed silently 
out in the river. Bright Eyes plied the paddles 
at one end of the skiff, while his father sat at the 


38 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


other end holding in his right hand a long spear, 
and in his left a torch of dried birch-bark. 

The blaze from the torch threw a flood of light 
on the water, so that every pebble in the lied be- 
low could be seen, and among the flags along the 
shore they saw the pike. There they lay, the cun- 
ning creatures ! Their duck-shaped heads close 
together, and their mottled-green sides shining in 
the torch- light. 

High was the long spear lifted. Straight at the 
flat heads it flew, and bore aloft a speckled beauty. 
Another and another struggled on the spear-point. 

Then the swarm of pike regained their senses 
and scampered away down the river. But off 
sped the skiff into the darkness, swifter than the 
fish might carry the news. And soon another lot 
of silly flatheads lay dazzled in the torch-light. 

And when the late moon rose above the tree- 
tops, the skiff was full of pike, and the two fisher- 
men rowed back shouting, to the lodge. 

At dawn on the morrow. Bright Eyes sprang 
from his bed of leaves, to help string the glit- 
tering treasures on a line of twisted cedar bark. 
And with canoe and fish on their shoulders. Bright 
Eyes and the sachem reached at last the village on 
the Taunton. Hi, how good tasted the steaming 
succotash of corn and beans and pike ! 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


39 


After this journey to the forest, Bright Eyes and 
his father were much together. They set traps 
for the heaver, and for the weasels, those with the 
white fur which was prized for ornaments ; and 
for the brown martens, and for the raccoons, whose 
skins made pouches and bags. They enticed ani- 
mals within reach, by imitating their cries. They 
howled like wolves, bleated like the fawns, honked, 
honked like the wild geese, and gobbled, gobbled 
like the turkeys, which came in droves to the oak 
forests for acorns. 

They caught the turkeys in traps, that they 
might not spoil the tine feathers. First they made 
a pen of wood, with an opening below just large 
enough for a turkey to pass, and scattered corn in- 
side and outside. Then, hidden in the trees, they 
gobbled, turkey fashion. Soon the great bronze- 
colored birds came in sight. They flew in short 
stages. They rested on the limbs of trees, stretching 
out their long necks and peering cautiously about 
with their bright, beadlike eyes. They alighted 
and strutted proudly here and there. Then they 
stood very still, listening for more gobbles from 
their wandering mates. At last they spied the 
scattered corn, and having eagerly devoured all on 
the outside of the pen, they squeezed through the 
hole for the corn on the inside. When they had 


40 


THE STORY OE THE INDIANS 


eaten this they spread their wings to fly away. 
But they looked up to fly. They never thought 
of the place where they had entered. So these 
proud birds paid a heavy penalty for their lack of 
common sense. Their bodies went into the pot, 
and their beautiful feathers waved in the head-dress 
of many an Indian brave. 

Bright Eyes learned to build a gull-house with 
sticks fixed in the sands of the beach. He covered 
it with loose poles and a thatch of seaweed. Then 
he laid large pieces of whale flesh on the thatch, 
and while the gulls were fighting over the meat 
and eating it, he stood beneath the roof, reached 
up his hands and drew down the birds one by one 
between the poles, until he had caught as many of 
them as he wanted. 

Bright Eyes was very busy in the autumn, when 
the leaves were turning crimson. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


41 


CHAPTER YL 

MASSASOIT. 

Through the long, dark winter season, there was 
little the warriors could do in the Land of the 
Bays, for it was always very cold. The villages by 
the rivers were moved to thick- wooded bottoms for 
shelter from the fierce blasts of the north. The 
families huddled about the fires in the wigwams, 
while the rivers froze thick and the snow wrapped 
all the tree-tops in white mantles, and covered up 
the pathways through the forest. 

Sometimes, to be sure, a few stupid fish were 
caught through a hole in the ice, or a foolish duck 
was found imbedded in the frozen water. 

But this good luck did not happen very often, 
and dried squash and corn, smoked venison and 
bear’s meat, were thought to be good enough for 
winter food. 

It was in high glee, that one morning very early 
in the spring, while the snow still lay deep on the 
ground. Bright Eyes joined his father in a moose 
hunt. 

Armed with bows and arrows^ they sped on 


42 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


their snow - shoes over the crisp crust toward 
the foothills. Icicles on the branches overhead 
cracked and trembled as they passed. Rabbits 
leaped in frantic haste across their pathway. The 
north wind whipped their faces into crimson. 
Swiftly they sped with eyes fixed on the snow. 
There were the tracks of a fox, that had been par- 
tridge hunting. There was the trail of a grey 
squirrel, as it scampered from tree to tree. There 
were the prints where the hare’s broad pads had 
fallen. The hunters wandered far, and when at 
last they found the deep tracks of a moose, they 
hurried faster than ever over the deep-drifted hol- 
lows and up the frozen water courses, but night 
came on and no moose was yet in sight. 

Then they sought shelter in a cave behind a snow- 
drift. The cave was deep and dark, and their 
voices sounded strangely through the silence. 
The chief peered cautiously around. He sniffed 
the air. “ Woof!” he said, “Bears have been here.” 
But they saw nothing in the darkness ; they heard 
nothing but their own quick breathing. 

Then they scraped dry leaves together and built 
a fire near the mouth of the cavern. Both were 
very tired, and, after a supper of parched corn, lay 
down and were soon fast asleep. 

The fire flickered and smoldered in the ashes. 



* A 






“massasoit!” he cried at last, 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


43 


The wind whistled about the snow-drifts at the en- 
trance of the cavern. On the hunters slept. They 
were dreaming, perhaps, of the moose they would 
find on the morrow. 

But what is that slow, dull sound as of something 
dragging over the ground ? What are those two 
balls of fire coming always nearer ? What is 
that dark shadow creeping out of the yet darker 
shadows behind it ? Still the hunters sleep on. 

Suddenly, no one ever knew just how it did hap- 
pen, Bright Eyes was wide awake, and saw in an 
instant that danger was near. 

He seized the stone hatchet at his side, and 
sprang toward the shadow. High in the air a 
monster bear raised its shaggy body, and the boy 
felt hot breath on his cheek as he sprang straight 
into its outstretched arms. But before the sharp 
claws could bury themselves in his shoulder, he 
dealt mighty blows on the head and on the neck, 
and then pounded away in wild random, until the 
great bear fell with a howl at his feet. The up- 
roar roused the chief from his slumber. He gazed 
at the mighty beast shaking in death spasms at the 
feet of his son. He rubbed his eyes and could 
hardly believe what he saw. “ Massasoit,’’ he 
cried at last, “ the great one, the brave one ! This 
shall be your name, my Bright Eyes. Always 


44 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


henceforth you are Massasoit, for who has done a 
greater deed than this ? ” Bright Eyes was very 
glad that he had won a name. Every Indian brave 
must win his own name, and it had grieved him 
much of late to be called Bright Eyes, like a baby. 
Now they piled high the fire with brushwood, and 
stripped off* the heavy bearskin, and hung it up in 
the cave to dry. Then they roasted some meat for 
their breakfasts. Never, surely, was there sweeter, 
juicier meat, than this haunch from the bear that 
Massasoit killed. 

It was very early morning when these two hun- 
ters followed again the moose tracks. A hare, 
white and silent, ran across their pathway. That 
was a good sign, and over the crackling snow they 
skated on their snow-shoes. 

At last a magnificent moose came in sight, toss- 
ing its branching horns and throwing its long feet 
out in a trot, at the rate of twenty miles an hour. 

And then the fun began. It may be that the 
chief did not run at his utmost speed, and that he 
wanted his boy to catch the first moose. At any 
rate, Massasoit kept well to the front on his snow- 
shoes. The hemlocks themselves, seemed running 
before his dizzy eyes. On and on sped the two. 
Then, at last, the moose broke through the crust 
of snow. It floundered madly in its struggles to 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


45 


rise again. It kicked straight out with its hind 
feet, and whirled around to beat with its fore feet. 

The air was white with the blinding snow. A 
moment more, and Massasoit was near the magnifi- 
cent creature, with his father close behind. Thick 
and fast fell their arrows, until the noble animal 
reeled forward and fell to the earth with a last 
panting breath. 

There was no danger now, and quickly, while 
the flesh was warm, they stripped off the beautiful 
skin. Then they cut the sweet meat from the 
haunches, and bore it back to the cavern, and with 
the skins of the moose and the bear they returned 
to the lodge on the Taunton. 

You may be sure there was rejoicing in the vil- 
lage when it became known that Bright Eyes had 
won his name. 

All the warriors were invited to a great feast, 
and they came in paints and feathers. The sachem 
clothed Bright Eyes in a new doeskin, and put 
beads about his neck and a hatchet in his hand, 
made of sharpened stone, and set in a staff of oak 
wood. And before all the assembled people he 
called him “Massasoit, the Great One, the Brave 
One.” 

That was a proud and happy day for Bright 
Eyes. 


46 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS. 


CHAPTER VIL 

THE FALL HUNT. 

There was idling among the warriors in the 
summer, while the maize was growing. 

They floated lazily down the river, or lounged 
about in the shade of the forest, mending nets and 
sharpening hatchets, smoking and gossiping the 
whole day through. 

But in autumn they were very busy, for this 
was the hunting season, when game was killed and 
meat was dried for winter. 

It was in autumn that Massasoit went with 
many hunters to drive the woods. They spread 
through the forest in one wide circle, leaving an 
open space, and then they drew closer and closer 
together, shouting “ Heigh-eigh ! Who-oo-i-oo- 
who ! ” 

The frightened game heard the noises and tried 
to escape. The antlered deer ran through the 
leafy glades, the shaggy bear lumbered out of his 
cave, the squirrels scampered through the branches, 
rabbits leaped through the thickets, grouse, part- 
ridges, turkeys hurried helter-skelter, toward the 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


47 


open space where safety seemed to lie. But, alas! 
Here, crouched in ambush, were a score of hunters. 
Arrows flew from all around the circle, and soon 
the ground was strewn with wild game. Then the 
skins of the animals were stretched on the ground, 
with the flesh side uppermost, and the edges pinned 
down with wooden pegs, that they might not shrink ; 
the meat was hung on drying scaflblds ; the teeth 
were strung for beads ; the claws were made into 
ornaments ; the feathers of the birds were plucked ; 
the skins of the snakes were dried ; the sinews of 
the deer were drawn for cords, and the antlers 
polished to deck some warriors in the war dance. 
So driving the woods brought a great deal of work. 

Then there was the fowling. At early nightfall 
the Indians stalked about the beach, with torch in 
one hand and stick in the other. The seabirds in 
the marshes, bewildered by the sudden glare of 
the torches, flew within reach, and were knocked 
down by the dozen. 

Then there were fishing excursions. Many hun- 
ters, in light canoes, sped down the river on a 
chase for sturgeons. They caught the monster 
fishes with lines of twisted willow bark, and with 
the thigh bones of a rabbit ; or they held them fast 
in stout nets of hemp. 

In the lovely Indian summer, when the north 


48 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


wind painted all the foliage crimson and the south 
wind filled the air with haze and vapor, the villages 
were moved to some bay or to the falls of some 
winding river. Here the tents were pitched, and 
grey columns of smoke ascended from hundreds 
of campfires. The women were soon hard at work 
cooking, spreading out fresh skins, and putting up 
drying scaffolds for the meat. The children ran 
about, making the woods resound with their merry, 
piping voices. The warriors, when they were not 
hunting, lounged about, smoking, or sat in groups 
sorting out flints they had picked up for arrow 
heads, and chipped slowly with stone upon stone 
as they chatted, joked and bantered. 

It was all very much like a country fair. There 
were games of football and wrestling, racing, 
throwing stones and shooting targets. 

Indian fakirs swallowed spears and arrows and 
flames of fire ; they killed a boy and brought him 
back to life again, and changed a rabbit to a wild 
duck. At least that is what these fakirs claimed to 
do, and many said they really did all these wonder- 
ful things right before the eyes of all the people. 

There was a great deal of gambling and betting 
on games of chance at these Indian fairs. 

Cards were made of bits of rushes and dice were 
made of painted pebbles. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


49 


Sometimes, in his wager, an unmarried man 
lost all his wampum, his bow and arrow, the furs 
which clothed him, his canoe, and even the very 
scalp locks he had won in hard-fought battles. 
Then, when he had nothing else to wager, he staked 
his own body, and if he lost, became a slave. But 
an Indian in bondage pined away and always 
wished to die, and his service was not thought to 
be of much account. 

There were many mystic dances at these autumn 
picnics. Drums of dried bark, flutes of willow, and 
tortoise-shell rattles called out the dancers for the 
amusement of all the village. 

First they moved in very solemn measures, and 
stepped in and out among the pines softly like the 
panthers. Then they turned around in circles, 
whirling and spinning, until they leaped quite over 
the heads of those sitting on the ground. Round 
the wigwams they flew in wider circles, faster and 
faster, until the dust and dried leaves rose in a 
whirlwind. Then they ran to the river’s brink, 
stamped upon the sand, and tossed it until the very 
air began to whirl about in dancing, and the sand 
was blown like snow-drifts all along the river. 
Then they sat down laughing, and everybody 
laughed and chattered. 

The Indians were all great story lovers, and 


50 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


they gathered with eager faces about the blazing 
pine-knots to listen to those who had the gift of 
telling stories. There in the firelight sat Prairie 
Flower, Morning Gilory, May Blossom, Curling 
Smoke and all the other Indian beauties waiting 
to hear the stories ; and the loudest praise was 
given to the one who talked the best. He always 
won the softest glances from the maidens, and so 
there was great rivalry among the warriors to ex- 
cel in story telling. 

In the fall hunt, when Massasoit was thirteen 
years old, he heard many good stories. 

First an old man, a famous boaster, told the 
story of Osseo. 

“Many, many years ago,” he said, standing up 
and looking round the circle, “many, many years 
ago, there lived a hunter in the north land who had 
ten lovely daughters. They were tall and straight 
as the willows. But Oweenee, the youngest, was 
the fairest of them all. Her eyes were soft and 
dreamy like the fawn’s. Her hair was black and 
glossy as the raven’s wing. Her breath was as sweet 
as the fragrance of the wild flowers. Her laugh 
was like the singing waters. So light was her step 
that the flowers in her pathway only bent their 
heads as she trod upon them ; and so skilful was 
she with her needle and her wampum, that her 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


51 


father’s wigwam was more beautiful than any sac- 
hem’s in the north land. 

“All her sisters married brave and haughty 
warriors ; and young and handsome suitors laid 
their roebucks at Oweenee’s doorway. But she 
would not even look at any of them. 

“ Now there was in the village, the son of a great 
king, although no one knew he was a prince, for a 
wicked magician had transformed him into an old 
man. Everybody thought he was a common beg- 
gar. When the village started to move, this beg- 
gar prince, whose name was Osseo, always stayed 
behind to pick up anything that had been thrown 
away as useless, and he sometimes found pieces of 
robes, worn-out moccasins, and bones on which 
was a bite of meat. 

“ His face was all wrinkles, his teeth were gone, 
his legs and arms were shrunken and looked like 
pipe stems. He was weak with constant cough- 
ing. He looked so broken down and wheezy that 
the boys jeered at him as he begged from door 
to door. 

“ But each time the lovely Oweenee gave this 
stranger bear’s meat, she saw his eyes were soft 
and full of sorrow. And she fell to wondering 
who this beggar might be. She asked him many 
questions, and could not forget the magic of his 


52 


THE STORY OE THE INDIANS 


glances, and at length she began to listen for his 
tottering footsteps. 

“ Once, when the moon filled all the night with 
splendor, they sat beside the spring which bubbled 
from the hillside, and Oweenee told Osseo that she 
loved him, and so they were married. 

“Then all her former suitors mocked her for 
marrying a bag of bones, and said they wished her 
joy with her beggar. But Oweenee told them 
proudly she was happy with Osseo. 

“ And every day she walked slowly through the 
village, leading her aged husband, smoothing out 
the pathway for his tottering feet. 

‘ ‘ Once all ten sisters and their husbands were 
invited to a feast a long way otF through the 
forest. 

“ The nine sisters walked ahead and chattered 
gayly with their handsome warriors, and filled the 
woods with laughter. Behind them came Owee- 
nee, leading Osseo gently by the hand. 

“ Sometimes he stopped to look up at the bright 
stars overhead, and he prayed very softly. 

“ When the sisters looked back and saw him 
standing, they called out to each other, ‘ What a 
pity that he does not fall and break his neck ! ’ 
And they fell to laughing louder than ever. 

“At length they came to a hollow oak-tree, 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


53 


which had fallen across the path, and lay half 
buried in dead leaves and mosses. 

“As soon as Osseo saw this great log, he uttered 
a cry and sprang into the opening. 

“ Now, when he went in at one end of the log, 
he was ugly, ragged, old and wrinkled ; but when 
he came out of the other end he was tall and young 
and handsome. He had on a soft white shirt of 
doeskin, fringed in ermine, and worked in bands of 
wampum. His leggings were of deerskin, gay 
with the quills of the hedgehog. His moccasins 
were of buckskin, embroidered thick with quills 
and beads, and on his head were waving plumes 
of snow-white feathers. There he was, the real 
prince, just as he had been before the wicked ma- 
gician changed him, and he sprang with a glad 
cry toward his lovely bride. But, alas ! at the 
very moment that the spell for Osseo was broken, 
the lovely Oweenee was transformed into a weak 
old woman. She was very ugly, bent and wrin- 
kled. 

“The sisters laughed louder than ever at this, 
for they had always envied her beauty. They 
gazed in wonder at her fine young husband, and 
tried with all their arts to entice him from Owee- 
nee’s side. But Osseo walked with the slow steps 
of his old wife. He held her yellow, withered 


54 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


hand in his. He called her sweetheart, and did all 
that he could to make her think he did not see how 
very ugly she was. 

“When they reached the feast, all sat in the 
wigwam and made merry except Osseo. He could 
neither eat nor drink. He could not speak nor 
listen to anything that was said. Everybody paid 
the fine young fellow great attention. They passed 
him the choicest meats, but he sat there looking 
sadly at Oweenee. 

“Then a low voice whispered to him, ‘Osseo, 
the evil charm is broken.’ And then the lodge 
began to tremble. The wooden dishes changed to 
scarlet shells. The earthen pots changed to silver 
bowls. The roof poles and the bark walls of the 
wigwam changed to silver and to jasper. 

“ At the same time the wicked sisters and their 
husbands were changed to birds. Some were jays 
and some were magpies. Some were thrushes and 
some were blackbirds. They hopped, and twit- 
tered, and spread out their plumage as if they had 
been birds all their lives. 

“ But poor Oweenee was not changed at all. It 
seemed to her it would be better to be a bird than 
such a feeble old woman. 

“ There she sat, wrinkled, sad and ugly. When 
Osseo saw her thus he prayed in anguish that she 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


55 


might be restored to youth and beauty. Woof! 
Woof! Her ragged garments were changed to 
robes of ermine. Her staff became a shining silver 
feather. Her eyes shone like stars. Her hair swept 
in masses to her feet. She was more beautiful than 
before. 

‘ ‘ And Osseo and 0 weenee lived happily ever , 
after. But the wicked sisters and their husbands 
always hopped about in gilded cages as a punish- 
ment for laughing at the misfortunes of other 
people. 

“It is not well/^ said the story-teller, looking 
solemidy around at some giddy young folks, “ it 
is not well to jeer at people because they are old 
and ugly.’’ 

Some saw a pointed moral to this tale. All said 
it was a beautifol story, and there was much ap- 
plause as the old man took his seat in the circle. 


56 


THE STORY OP THE INDIANS 


CHAPTER VIIL 
A hunter’s story. 

After the old man, who had related the story of 
Osseo, had resumed his seat, a young warrior 
arose, and glancing at the painted maidens, began 
to tell of the Marshpee maiden. 

“ Once,” he said, “ there lived among the 
Marshpees, a maiden named Arva. She was very 
silly and very idle. She sat whole days doing 
nothing. Wliile the other women of the village 
were busy weeding out the corn, bringing home the 
fuel, drying the fish, thatching the cabins, or mend- 
ing the nets, there sat this maiden, doing nothing. 

“Then, too, even if she had been thrifty, she 
was so ugly that no warrior wanted to marry her. 
She squinted, her face was long and thin, her nose ^ 
was humped, her teeth were crooked, her chin was 
as sharp as the bill of a loon, her ears were as 
large as those of a deer, her long arms were noth- 
ing but fleshless bones, her legs were like two pine 
poles stripped of their bark. She was, indeed, so 
ugly that everybody nearly died with laughing 
when they saw her. 


Op" new ENGLAND. 


57 


“Now, strange to say, this Marshpee maiden 
had the most beautiful voice in the world. Noth- 
ing could equal the sweetness of her singing. 
There was a low hill at a distance from the village, 
and here she often sat alone and sang during the 
long summer evenings. As soon as she began to 
sing, the branches above her head would be filled 
with birds, the thickets around her crowded with 
beasts, and the river, which was not far from the 
foot of the hill, would be alive with fishes. 

“Little minnows and monster porpoises, spar- 
rows and eagles, snails and lobsters, mice and 
moles, and all the beasts of the forest, came to listen 
to the songs of the ugly Marshpee maiden. 

“Whenever she had finished one song, she was 
obliged straightway to begin another, for there 
were growls and barks, hisses and squeals and 
squeaks from the water and the hillside, where 
each animal applauded in the very best way he knew 
how. 

“Now, among the fishes that came every night 
to listen, was a great trout. He was chief of tlie 
trout that hid so cunningly among the roots be- 
neath the water, that no snare could ever catch 
them. 

‘ ‘ This chief of the trout was as long as a man 
and quite as thick. He was so large that he could 


58 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


not approach as near the shore as he wished, and 
he was so eager to hear the music that he ran his 
nose more and more into the soft bank of the river. 

“ Every night he dug farther and farther, till at 
length he had plowed out a passage very wide and 
longer than an arrow’s flight, which became a 
brook, called to this very day Coatuit Brook. 

“One night he spoke to the songstress. He 
could not see how ugly she was, for it was always 
dark when she sang. So he told her how beautiful 
she was, and said so many flattering things, that 
in the end the poor girl’s head was quite turned. 
She thought the gurgling speech of her fish was 
the sweetest she had ever heard, and she listened 
to him for hours, and fed him the roots he liked. 

“ But for all this, the maiden and her lover be- 
came very unhappy, for he could not live on the 
land three minutes at a time, and she could not 
live in the water. They shed many briny tears. 
‘ If he only might come to my wigwam ! ’ sighed 
the maiden. ‘ If she might only swim down to 
my grotto in the bottom of the sea ! ’ groaned the 
trout king. 

“ One night, while thus lamenting, they heard a 
strange noise. A glowworm lighted up the hill- 
side, and they saw a little man before them. 
Around his neck was a string of bright shells. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


59 


His hair was as green as ooze, and woven with the 
long weeds which grow among the corals of the 
ocean. His body was covered with scales, and his 
hands were shaped like the fins of a fish. He was 
the king of all the fishes, and seemed in a very bad 
humor indeed. 

“ He asked, frowning, why they made such lam- 
entation that he could not sleep in his palace of 
pearls in the depth of the sea. 

“At this the maiden was very bashful and hid 
her ugly face in her doeskin. But the chief of the 
trout spoke up boldly. ‘ This charming Marshpee 
maiden and I love each other to distraction,^ he 
said, ‘ but, alas ! neither of us can live where the 
other does.’ ‘ Grieve not, ’ said the little green man, 
‘ I will transform the maiden to a fish.’ So he led 
her to the river, and sprinkled water over her head 
and uttered some very mysterious words. 

‘ ‘ Then cries of pain rose on the night air. The 
body of the maiden became covered with scales. 
Her large ears, and crooked nose, and sharp chin, 
and long, bony arms, were gone ; her legs had 
grown together. She had become a trout, and 
soon the pair glided lovingly off to sea. 

“ But the Marshpee maiden never forgot her old 
home, and one night in every year two immense 
trout play in the waters of Coatuit Brook.” 


60 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


When this story was ended there was great ap- 
plause, and all fell to talking at once. Some said 
that they knew this story to be a fact, for they 
themselves had seen the very spot where it all 
happened. 

Others said they did not believe a word of it. 
To be sure, there was a brook called the Coatuit, 
but it had been dug out by the giant, Kwasind, as 
he pulled his skiff down to the river. 

The dispute about the Marshpee maiden was loud 
and long, and has never been quite settled, even 
down to the present day. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


61 


CHAPTER IX. 

TRADITION OF THE WHITE MEN. 

As there seemed no possible way to settle the 
dispute about the origin of Coatuit Brook, another 
warrior arose to tell a story, and then everybody 
sat quite still and listened. 

“ OIF to the south,” said the speaker, who was 
young and handsome, and had a very winning 
smile as he looked about him, “and across from 
Buzzard’s Bay, is the island of Xope. It is a queer 
old island, full of caves and hillocks. There are 
high cliffs at the west end, formed of blue and yel- 
low, red and white clays, which glitter and shim- 
mer in the sunshine. A long time ago, there 
dwelt near the west end of this island a good- 
natured giant who was very fond of a joke. Some 
people say that this giant Moshup lived near the 
brook that was plowed by the great trout, but it 
was on the island of Nope that he lived. 

“ Moshup was so big that when he caught whales 
by wading into the sea, he tossed them out as boys 
do black bugs from a puddle. 

“ He was taller than the tallest tree, and larger 


62 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


around than the spread of the hemlocks. Faults he 
had, but they were really very little ones. He was 
cross to his wife, but he drank nothing stronger 
than water, and never ate more than a small whale 
at one meal. He smoked too much tobacco. That 
was his greatest fault. 

‘ ‘ He exacted one-tenth tribute of all the whales 
and finbacks which might be taken on the island, 
and all of the porpoises caught in the frog month. 
Scarcity he bore with composure, but if he were 
cheated ; if the poorest fish were sent him ; or a hal- 
ibut hidden j or a finback were sunk with a buoy 
attached to it ; or a fin of a whale was buried in 
the sand, he straightway fell into a great rage, and 
the Indians paid dearly for their roguery. 

To tell the truth, it was not to their interest to 
cheat Moshup. He often directed them to a fine 
school of blackfish. He foretold storms, and thus 
saved many fishermen from a watery grave. He 
had the reputation of being very kind-hearted, for 
he assisted young people in their courtships. And 
if a father said, ‘ it shall not be,’ there was Moshup 
to say ‘ it shall be,’ and the father always changed 
his mind. 

‘‘ When the women of the island were given to 
scolding, Moshup had a knack of taming them, and, 
taking it all together, Moshup was a great favorite 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


63 


with the Indians while he was young . But as he grew 
old he grew cross. It is said he would beat his wife 
for nothing, and his children for a great deal less. 

“ He exacted a half of a whale, instead of a tenth, 
or took the whole of it without asking the leave of 
anybody. 

“Instead of helping marriages, as he had once 
done, he now prevented them. He set friendly 
families by the ear, and created frequent wars be- 
tween the tribes on the island of Nope. 

‘ ‘ Then he frightened the wild ducks with such 
terrific shouts that the archers could not get near 
them ; he cut the traps set for the grouse. In 
short, Moshup became very troublesome, indeed. 

“ It was no use fretting. He was firmly seated 
on their necks, and there was no shaking him off. 
But in the end, his harsh ways unpeopled his neigh- 
borhood, and Moshup and his family had the west 
end of the island to themselves. 

“Now% in the south part of Nope lived the sa- 
chem, Niwasse. He was very wealthy in ponds 
well stocked with perch, clams, oysters, and wild 
fowl, and in swamps full of terrapin, and he had a 
beautiful daughter. She was very tall. Her hair 
was long, and glossy as a raven’s wing. Her step 
was light and graceful. She drew the bow like a 
warrior, and her father’s wigwam was full of suit- 


64 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


ors for her hand. But she laughed at all their 
presents of conch shells and eagle feathers, for she 
already loved a young warrior on the other end of 
the island. And as no one could persuade her 
father to consent to their marriage, there was noth- 
ing else to do but go boldly to old Moshup, and 
lay the whole matter before him. The lovers ar- 
rived at his lodge at a lucky hour. A school of 
whales had just foundered on the rocks, and he 
had just had a present of some excellent tobacco ; 
so he determined to help the unhappy pair. 

‘ ‘ He put a few hundred pounds of tobacco in 
his pouch, and set out on the journey with the young 
warrior on his shoulder, and the maiden in a litter 
formed by one of his arms. He reached the sachem’s 
lodge in a twinkling. ‘ Why can not these charm- 
ing young people wed ? ’ he roared, as he stooped 
to look in at the doorway. The father stammered 
out something about the youth’s poverty. He was 
not celebrated. He had won only three scalp locks. 

‘ Is that all the trouble ? ’ roared the giant, ‘ What 
must the young man have to win this maiden ? ’ 

“ ‘ A great deal of land — he must have a whole 
island,’ answered Niwasse. ‘ Good. Follow me ! ’ 
said Moshup, drawing great columns of smoke into 
his mouth, and blowing it out through his nose, 

‘ Follow me.’ 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


65 


“So the sachem followed as fast as he could, 
and a large crowd hurried after him to see what 
the giant would do. 

“Now Moshup never did anything by halves. 
He went to a high cliff and sat down. He filled his 
pipe with tobacco, kindling it with a flash of light- 
ning. He bowed once to the rising sun, twice to 
the north star, blew three times in a conch shell, 
muttered some strange words, and fell to smoking 
at a great rate. 

“ Thunder rolled, lightning flashed, rains poured 
down. Voices were heard puffing and blowing as 
of men in great labor. The watching crowd heard 
a hissing sound, like live coals dropped into water 
— Moshup had emptied his pipe. 

“And behold, when the mists cleared away, 
there was a beautiful island, the ashes from Mo- 
shup’s pipe ! The happy pair upon whom he be- 
stowed this island named it Nantucket, which is the 
name it bears to this very day. 

“ As for Moshup himself, this kind office seemed 
to restore his good nature, and for many years it 
was the golden age on the island of Nope. 

“ But there is an end to all things. One day a 
queer canoe, large enough for Moshup himself, 
sailed around the island, borne on white wings and 
gliding along without a paddle in sight, 


66 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


‘ ‘ There were men in the giant canoe whose faces 
were white like the snow, whose eyes were blue 
like the sky ; and their hair grew all over their 
cheeks and chins and swept down to their waists. 
But they were as small as common Indians, and 
Moshup laughed as he waded out in the sea to up- 
set them. Boom ! Boom ! Boom ! came loud thun- 
der, straight from the side of the vessel. 

“ Moshup turned and fled in frantic haste from 
the island. He leaped across the channel which 
divides it from the mainland, and was never again 
seen in the Land of the Bays.” 

Before the loud applause for this fine tale had 
died away, an old warrior arose, and, when there 
was silence, said he had heard of these men with 
white faces. They had once been seen by the Nar- 
ragansetts who dwelt across the bay. He said he 
had the story from his warrior father, who had 
heard it from a Narragansett slave. 

A great vessel with widespread wings had 
floated up the bay. It was much too big for the 
men who were in it, for they were really no larger 
than common Indians. 

But these Palefaces were a mighty race of men. 
They held the thunder in their hands, and sent it 
roaring in thick clouds from the sides of their 
canoe. Their eyes were blue, and they were 



MOSHUP LAUGHED AS HE WADED OUT IN THE SEA TO UPSET THEM, 



OF NEW ENGLAND. 


67 


clothed from head to foot in armor which shone 
like the sun. 

They came on land and stayed among the Nar- 
ragansetts for half a moon. They wanted furs, 
and traded the most beautiful strings of wampum 
for a common deerskin, and the sharpest, most cun- 
ning knives, for a pack of beaverskins. They were 
not shrewd traders, and were cheated right and 
left by the Indians, but they were a mighty peo- 
ple with their thunder, and everybody was afraid 
to go near their camp. 

At last their great canoe flapped its wings, and 
sailed away, and the Palefaces carried off with 
them a young Indian boy, the son of a chief. 
There was no hope of getting him back. I7o one 
dared go near the vessel. What became of the 
lad was never known, and there was sorrow and 
lamentation over his loss, for he was an only son. 
It was a long story before the narrator had fin- 
ished. There were many grunts and ugh^s ! and 
hi^s ! and ho’s ! before he ended. Then it was the 
universal opinion that the Narragansetts had man- 
ufactured the story. 

Now, it was easy for the people of Massasoit to 
discredit any boasting story which their hated rivals 
across the bay might tell ; and they really did not 
believe that a word of this which they heard was true. 


68 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


But you and I know that a ship from France 
put in at Narragansett Bay in the month of Aprils 
1524. 

This was written to Francis I. by the sailor Y erraz- 
zani, who told the king all about the half-naked In- 
dians that had surrounded his ship with their 
canoes, and gazed in wonder at the armor which 
he wore. 

I think, too, we may guess that the strapping 
Moshup, if there ever was such a jolly old giant, 
was frightened off the island of Nope, or Martha’s 
Vineyard, by the Norsemen, who, it is said, visited 
all that region in the Land of the Bays about the 
year 1001, 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


69 


CHAPTER X. 

THE COMING OF THE WHITE MEN. 

It was in the year 1685 that Massasoit first 
heard stories of the Palefaces. Not one in his 
tribe believed that these stories were true ; yet we 
know that nearly one hundred years before this, 
Christopher Columbus had crossed the ocean four 
times, the grandees of Spain had planted colonies 
on the islands of the West Indies, and searched in 
vain through all the mainland for fabled cities with 
gold-paved streets. 

The aged Ponce de Leon had sought the magic 
fountain of youth among the palm-trees of Florida, 
and old and wrinkled still, had died from an In- 
dian arrow. 

Ferdinand de Soto and his knights had wan- 
dered far in search of gold, and found their graves 
on the barren shores of the Mississippi river ; and 
then, twenty years before this very time, a large 
colony of Spaniards had come to Florida in a fleet 
of ships, to found the beautiful city of St. Augus- 
tine. 

But all these visits to America had happened far 


70 


THE STORY OP THE INDIANS 


to the south, where the Mohilian Indians dwelt, 
and the Algonquins in the Land of the Bays never 
wandered southward, and did not understand the 
Mohilian language, and that is the reason Massa- 
soit’s people had not heard of the pale-faced Span- 
iards. 

Then, too, in the far north, the Cabots had 
ploughed their white-winged ships through the 
shoals of codfish, off the coast of Labrador and 
Nova Scotia. French fishermen from Normandy 
had come over the “ morning waters ” in their 
frail barks to catch the fish, and dry them on the 
rocks of New Foundland. Jacques Cartier had 
sailed up the St. Lawrence river, and eaten in the 
wigwams of an Indian village, which he named 
Montreal. 

But the people of Massasoit knew nothing of all 
this that had happened in the north, either ; for the 
Mohawks dwelt there, and these two nations never 
met, except in deadly combat. 

And so, as I said, the Wampanoags did not be- 
lieve the boastful story of the Narragansetts about 
the visit of Yerrazzani. 

But the very next year, a great, white-winged 
ship anchored in the bay, near the spot where Mas- 
sasoit and his father and many warriors were in 
camp for the fishing season ; and men, who wore 


OF NEW ENGLAND, 


71 


shining armor, and had eyes blue like the sky, and 
skins white like the snow, just as the Narragan- 
setts had said, sprang from the side of the vessel. It 
was a proud day for the warriors ; and, trembling 
with mingled fear and delight, they hurried down 
to the beach. 

One of the strangers, taller and fairer than the 
rest, met them with smiling face and noble bear- 
ing. He clasped the hand of the sachem, and 
when he spoke his voice was gentle and kind. 

Now, an old chronicle says that Sir Francis 
Drake stopped at Cape Cod in the year 1586. 

The great admiral, in his famous voyage around 
the world, had once cast anchor on the fragrant 
shores of California. His charming smile so won 
the hearts of the natives, that they crowned him 
their king, and wept sorely when he sailed away. 

And here, in the Land of the Bays, the same 
honors awaited him. 

The sachem of the Wampanoags and Massasoit, 
his young son, and all the dusky warriors, knelt at 
the feet of Sir Francis, and implored him to dwell 
among them, and rule them as their king. 

He might take Mioonie, the sister of Massasoit, 
for his wife, they said, and with the thunder in his 
hand, he might lead the Wampanoags on the war- 
path to the Narragansetts ; he might even unite 


72 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


together all the quarreling tribes in the Land of 
the Bays — the Narragansetts, the Tarratines, the 
Massachusetts, the Pequods, the Mohegans, the 
Wampanoags, and lead them to victory over the 
hated Mohawks in the north. 

Could any mortal man, even a Paleface, wish 
greater glory than this ? 

But Sir Francis looked at the half-naked sav- 
ages, and then he thought of the yoemen of Eng- 
land, with cheeks ruddy from the freshness of the 
morning, and nerves like iron from the toil in the 
fields. He looked at Massasoit, the prince, and at 
his brothers, and at the young sons of the warriors, 
clad in the skins of wild beasts, and gay in sea- 
shells and beards claws, and then he thought of the 
young gallants in Elizabeth’s court in their doub- 
lets of scented velvets, their long silken hose, and 
golden rapiers hanging at their sides. He looked 
at the wigwams with the rows of ghastly scalp 
locks, the earthen pots and the rude beds of skin, 
and then he thought of the palaces in England, 
hung with rare tapestries, and adorned with pic- 
tures and books ; and he thought, too, of the neat 
farm-houses with paddocks tacked to orchard bits, 
and floors scrubbed white as the oak of which they 
were made, and beds of white dimity, and open win- 
dows through which the breath of the heather came. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


73 


He looked at the sad-eyed squaws bowed down 
with hard toil in the fields, and at the painted In- 
dian maidens, and then he thought of the merry 
farmers’ wives in clothes of their own spinning, and 
the joyous dairymaids in leather stays and white 
sleeves with white kerchiefs pinned over their 
necks, laughing to the morning as they sought the 
kine among the hills of Devon. 

No, he could not become their king and dwell 
in this Land of the Bays so far from the scenes of 
his childhood. 

“ He would be very glad,” he said, “ if all their 
tribes would unite and love each other as kindred 
nations should, but he could not lead them on the 
warpath to the Mohawks.” Was not Philip of 
Spain at that very moment building ships to in- 
vade the shores of England? And was not his 
beloved queen calling on her cavaliers to defend 
her with their lives ? 

So Sir Francis Drake did not linger in the Land 
of the Bays, and the white sails of his ship spread 
to the breeze, and were soon lost to view in the 
mists of the sea. 

Years passed by. Massasoit became a warrior, 
and was often on the warpath to bring back the 
scalps of his enemies ; and he became renowned 
for his wisdom and skill. 


74 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


He learned to love a maiden, a kind and gentle 
maiden. And when he went to visit her, he spent 
many hours laying on the paints of red and blue 
and white, smoothing out his tresses and twisting 
in the braids the quills of the hedgehog. He 
donned his finest leggings and moccasins, he 
clasped broad bands of silver on his arms, and 
chains of bear’s teeth and red hawthorn berries on 
his neck ; he hung bright plates of copper in his 
ears. 

And then once on a warm June evening, as he 
wandered with the maiden by the river, he said no 
word of love, but he gave the snowy locust blos- 
soms to her as a token, and she took the fragrant 
offering, smiling shyly at his glances. 

Then this lover grew bolder in his wooing, and 
carried the finest roebuck to the doorway of her 
father’s wigwam. 

“ Welcome ! ” said the warrior father ; but the 
maiden only looked her welcome. 

Then he entered the lodge, and sat down on a 
mat quite near her, and she did not rise to leave 
him. Then he put about her neck the purple 
wampum, always worn by the wives of the sa- 
chems, and so these two were married. And Mas- 
sasoit was very proud and happy as he led the dear 
one to his wigwam. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


75 


A few years after this the father of Massasoit 
died, and there was lamentation among all the 
tribes that paid him tribute. 

The body of the great chief was wrapped in the 
finest mats, and ha was buried, sitting, with his 
hands upon his knees. His tomahawk and wam- 
pum, his bright paints, a little corn, and a few 
pieces of wood to make a fire on his long journey 
to the Happy Hunting Grounds, were placed in 
the grave by his side. 

And his brilliant mantle of feathers was hung 
on the limbs of the nearest tree, where it swayed 
mournfully in the wind to remind the passers-by, of 
him who lay buried beneath the spreading branches. 


76 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


CHAPTER XI, 

MASSASOIT, THE KING. 

Massasoit was chosen king after the death of 
his father, and many tribes came to his lodge to 
pay him tribute. 

Xow Massasoit was not so proud and haughty 
as his father had been, for he had seen the shining 
armor of the white men, and his own powers 
seemed mean and little when he thought of the 
thunder they held in their hands. 

He chose as his capitol seat a beautiful spot near 
Narragansett Bay, called So warns, where the town 
of Warren, Rhode Island, now is. 

The Indians did not build houses, dig wells, 
plant orchards, fence in pastures and make some 
one place a home for themselves and their families 
as long as they lived. 

They dwelt in tents, their water was from the 
springs or running brooks, they had no flocks and 
no orchards, and because it was easy to move, they 
were always moving. And so they were divided 
up into little bands, and every pond and water- 
fall, and neck of land, and almost every hill, had 
its own tribe under its own chief. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


77 


But all these petty chiefs, from the Cape of 
Storms to the east side of Narragansett Bay, in- 
cluding the island of Nope, Nantucket, and the 
many other islands dotting the sea along the coast, 
were under tribute to Massasoit, king of the Wam- 
panoags. It required great skill to rule over so 
many different clans, but the young king was wise 
in council and brave in war ; and he was so gen- 
erous that other sachems in the Land of the Bays, 
who had been at war with his father, came to Mas- 
sasoit to bury the hatchet. 

“Let us dig up yonder oak,’^ said one, “and 
bury our hatchet beneath its roots.” “ Nay,” said 
another, ‘ ‘ the strong winds from the northwest 
might one day lay the mighty oak in the dust. 
Let us lift up yonder high mountain whose peak 
reaches to the sky, and bury our hatchet beneath it.” 

“Ah,” said another, “who of us has the power 
of a Manitou that he can remove a mountain from 
its base ? Yonder is the lovely bay of Narragan- 
sett. Let us throw our hatchet far out beneath the 
smiling waters, that it may never again sever the 
bonds of our friendship.” And so the flint hatchet 
was buried far out in the sea, and these nations 
dwelt at peace with one another. 

But across the bay on the west were the hated 
Narragansetts, who would not bury the hatchet ; 


78 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


for they could not forget the ancient feuds of their 
fathers. 

In 1602 an English ship, under command of 
Bartholomew Grosnold, sailed to the Cape of Storms, 
and many small skiffs were let down from its high 
deck to cast nets into the sea. The fishermen made 
such draughts of codfish that they called the place 
Cape Cod. Five of them came ashore, but only 
for a day, and Massasoit did not see them, because 
it was late for the fishing season when he and his 
warriors were in the habit of going into camp on 
the Cape of Storms. 

Gosnold soon embarked for Nope, the giant Mo- 
shup’s island, which he called Martha’s Yineyard. 
He sailed all around Martha’s Yineyard, then landed 
to explore it, and found it was covered with for- 
ests ; fruits furnished food, and flowers delighted 
the eye at every turn ; the honeysuckle, the wild 
pea, the eglantine and roses filled the air with per- 
fume. Young sassafras, which brought a great 
price in England as a medicine, promised the for- 
tune of a gold-mine ; while the deer which bounded 
through the leafy glades, and the beaver with vil- 
lages on every stream, made the fishermen think 
that this land was, indeed, a paradise for hunters 
and trappers. 

After passing the beautiful cliffs on the west end 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


79 


of the island, they discovered a little lake, and in 
the lake a rocky islet. Nothing could he better 
for a colony than this, they thought, and so they 
built a storehouse and fort on the islet, and sur- 
rounded it with a high palisade as a defense against 
the Indians, should they prove hostile. Then they 
brought their fishing boats from the ship, and be- 
gan to feel much at home in the new world. 

Soon an Indian chief came with fifty warriors to 
make them a friendly visit, and Captain Gosnold 
presented the chief with two knives and a straw 
hat. The warrior did not seem to regard the hat, 
but the knives made a great impression. He whit- 
tled and shaved everything he could lay his hands 
on, and in the end his leggings were a sorry sight, 
with the slits and gashes made by the magic knives. 

The white men gave their guests a feast of 
roasted crabs and broiled lobsters, and served scal- 
lops with mustard, which nipped their lioses and 
caused them to make such wry faces that every- 
body laughed. After this a brisk trade was car- 
ried on with the Indians, and, in a few weeks, the 
ship of Gosnold was loaded with furs and sassafras, 
and the captain prepared to return to England with 
his cargo ; he picked out the bravest of his men to 
remain in the fort and collect another cargo, while 
he was absent on the voyage. But when the sails 


80 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


of the ship were set, the hearts of these men failed 
them. They dreaded an attack from the Indians, 
and all embarked for England. And so only a 
fort, which was soon overgrown with rank weeds 
and clambering vines, remained to tell of the set- 
tlement planted in the Land of the Bays by Bar- 
tholomew Gosnold in 1602. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


81 


CHAPTER XII. 

THE PLAGUE. 

In 1614 Captain John Smith came to Cape Cod. 
This Captain Smith was a wonderful man, if every- 
thing is true that is said about him. Before he 
was thirteen, his father died, and John ran off to 
sea. He fought against the Spaniards, and after 
a time started to try his fortune against the Turks. 

On the way he was set upon by robbers, stripped 
of his clothes and money, and left to die in the for- 
est, but was found by a peasant and nursed back 
to health again. 

Then he fell in with a French vessel at Marseilles, 
which captured a Venetian merchant ship, and he 
shared in the plunder. 

With his pockets full of money, he joined a com- 
pany of pilgrims on the way to the Holy Land, 
and such a violent storm arose immediately after 
embarking in the vessel, that these pilgrims said he 
was a second Jonah, and threw him overboard to 
the whales. The boy did not wait for a whale, but 
swam like a drowning rat to an island, hailed a 
passing ship, and soon after reached the army in 


82 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


Hungary, for which he had started. Here he was 
very useful, and invented fireworks to help drive the 
Turks away from Lymbach, which they were be- 
sieging. 

As the Turkish army lay opposite the army of 
the Christians, three champion Turks, one after the 
other, stepped forth from the line of battle and 
challenged some cavalier to mortal combat. Smith 
encountered them, one after the other, and cut off 
their heads ; and he was made a captain of the 
horse for his many feats at arms. 

A Tartar prince captured him soon after with 
several of his countrymen, and they were sold in a 
slave-market near Adrianople. 

A pasha bought him to be his cupbearer in a 
very grand palace, and Smith looked so handsome 
in his long embroidered robes that the wife of the 
pasha fell in love with him. 

Then the husband, in a jealous rage, planned to 
sell him into worse bondage ; but the beautiful 
wife sent him secretly to her brother on the Black 
Sea for safe keeping. 

Instead of caring for him, this wicked brother 
stripped off his fine silken garments, clothed him in 
a coarse hair coat, girded about with a thong of skin, 
shaved his head and beard, riveted a great ring of 
iron about his neck, and made him the slave of slaves. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


83 


Smith watched and planned for an escape, and 
one day, when he found himself alone with his 
overseer, he struck him to the ground with his 
threshing bat, stripped the clothes from the body 
and hid it under the straw. 

Then he dressed himself in the clothes of the 
Turk, filled a sack with corn, shut the door of the 
prison, mounted a horse, and fled to the desert, 
where he wandered about until he fell in with some 
Christians, who were making a pilgrimage. He 
roamed all over Europe, and at last reached Eng- 
land just in time to sail for America. Now every- 
body was talking about America at this time. 

Many merchants had become rich by traffic with 
the Indians in furs and sassafras ; and as for the 
fishing trade, it had created a codfish aristocracy 
which the nobles said would soon undermine the 
very foundations of polite society. 

But King James was anxious to have the New 
World settled, and he encouraged the fisheries and 
the traffic in furs. He divided all the land which 
he claimed in America, and which was called Vir- 
ginia, between two companies of merchants. To the 
London Company he gave South Virginia, and to 
the Plymouth Company he gave North Virginia, 
which included the Land of the Bays. 

Now the London Company was just sending over 


84 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


ships to plant a colony in South Virginia, when 
Captain John Smith reached England. “Here is 
a chance to see something more of the world,” said 
Smith, and without a day’s delay he stepped on the 
hatchway of one of the vessels. The heavy sails 
swelled out before the winds, and in due course of 
time about a hundred passengers landed on the 
shores of a beautiful river, which they called the 
James, in honor of the king ; and in the month of 
May, 1607, began to lay out Jamestown. 

So Captain Smith helped to found the first per- 
manent English settlement in America. He be- 
came governor of Jamestown, and remained there 
three years, exploring the coast and meeting with 
many adventures. 

Once he was taken captive by the Indians, and 
spent his time for several weeks whittling dolls 
and making many curious playthings, for a ten- 
year-old Indian princess, who, it is said, saved him 
from death by throwing herself before him just as 
a cruel tomahawk was raised above his head. 

Smith was wounded at last by an explosion of 
gunpowder, and returned to England. He was 
soon sought out by the Plymouth Company to go 
to North Virginia to take whales, and search for 
mines of gold and copper. 

So two ships, one under command of Captain 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


85 


J ohn Smith, and the other under Thomas Hunt, 
sailed from the Downes of England, and in March, 
1614, made the shores of Penobscot Bay, which was 
already a famous resort for fishermen. 

While Hunt and his men were busy harpooning 
whales and trading with the Indians, Smith ex- 
plored the coast of the Land of the Bays. He 
drew a map from point to point, and harbor to har- 
bor, and rowed up a broad river which he named 
the Charles, after the young prince of that name, 
and he stopped at a harbor which he called Ply- 
mouth, after the busy seaport town in England. 

Now, while Captain Smith was serving his com- 
pany by noting all the places where the merchant 
ships might anchor, and jotting down locations for 
the cities of the future. Captain Hunt was serving 
them in quite a different way. He had filled his 
vessel with whale blubber and furs, and then, to 
make his cargo still more profitable, he kidnapped 
twenty Indians from Plymouth, and seven from 
Cape Cod, to sell as slaves in the markets of Spain. 

The cries of the unhappy prisoners rang out over 
the waters as the ship sailed away, but those who 
followed in canoes to rescue them, received a volley 
of shot and returned to the shore, vowing vengeance 
on the Palefaces. 

So, when two French fishing smacks came sail- 


86 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


ing into Massachusetts Bay, how should these poor 
Indians know that they were not the English in 
search of more slaves ? 

They set upon the Frenchmen and massacred 
all but five, who were held in wretched bondage, 
and sent from one sachem to another, to perform 
the most degrading labor. 

It is said that one of them had saved a Bible 
from the wreck of the ship, and after he had 
learned the language of the Indians, he told them 
that the God of the white men would send punish- 
ment upon the red men, because they had killed the 
French sailors, who never did them any wrong. 
He told them that they would one day be de- 
stroyed and wiped olF the face of the earth ; for 
the white man^s God was very angry ; and to 
prove his words, he read the passage, “ ‘Vengeance 
is mine,^ saith the Lord.” 

But the sachem of the Massachusetts tribe, by 
whom the men had been killed, led the Frenchman 
to a high hill. He looked down on the wigwams 
which dotted the streams and the cornfields, and the 
plantations of tobacco and vines along the beauti- 
ful bay. “Ah,” he exclaimed, “the Massachu- 
setts are such a great nation that the white man^s 
God cannot destroy us all. Behold our fields and 
our wigwams.” 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


87 


A very short time after, a terrible plague swept 
over the fair country, and hardly one hundred of 
all the three thousand warriors who dwelt about 
the bay escaped. But the sorrow was not among 
the Massachusetts alone, for the Wampanoags, and 
all their other allies, were afflicted. Massagoitsaw 
thousands of his people perish. He mourned 
deeply and prayed long hours before the little 
bundle of skins which hung in his lodge, implor- 
ing the Great Spirit to spare his warriors ; but 
they were stricken down so fast by the dread dis- 
ease, that soon the living could not bury the 
dead. 

Then he looked across the bay, and saw that not 
one of his enemies had fallen. And when he learned 
that only the Massachusetts and their friends had 
been scourged by the plague, he remembered how 
the Massachusetts had slain the Frenchmen ; and 
he said that the slave with the Bible had spoken 
truly, for they were being punished by the white 
man’s God. 

And so the story went about, and, like every story, 
grew larger and larger as it went, that the white 
men held the demon of the plague, and had sent it 
across the morning waters to destroy them. 

Massasoit believed this story, and all the Indians 
who dwelt in the Land of the Bays believed it. 


88 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


CHAPTER XIIL 

THE PILGRIMS. 

It was in the time of “ good Queen Bess ” that 
Sir Francis Drake had, if report he true, visited 
the Land of the Bays. 

It was during this reign also that oppressions 
about religion began in England. 

Laws were made by the queen and her bishops, 
imposing severe penalties on those who refused to 
conform to all the rules of the English church. 

Prayers were to be read from a book, and there 
were many ceremonies which some people did not 
like at all, and yet were forced to observe. 

Those over sixteen years of age, who refused to 
go to the church assigned them by the bishop, were 
cast into prison, and if they stayed away three 
months they might be put to death. 

In 1602 several persons in the north of England 
met together at Scrooby, to pray to God as they 
saw fit, and when this became known, they were 
thrown into prison and persecuted in so many ways, 
that they resolved to seek a home in' Holland, where 
they might worship as they pleased. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


89 


By the time they were ready to go, James I. 
was king in England. He was even more severe 
about church going than Queen Elizabeth had 
been ; and when he learned that this new sect was 
planning to leave England, set guards to watch 
the ports and harbors day and night. 

After many efforts to escape the vigilance of the 
police, twenty- two families succeeded in embark- 
ing for Holland, and because they wandered from 
place to place, they were called Pilgrims. 

These Pilgrims settled at last on a tract of land 
in the city of Leyden, where they built a house for 
each family, and lived to themselves and worship- 
ped as they pleased. 

I^ow, Holland was proud of her reputation as a 
refuge for heretics from all over Europe, and be- 
cause these Pilgrims were honest and industrious, 
they were treated kindly and greatly respected by 
the good burghers of Leyden. 

The little colony soon increased in numbers, and 
among those who came were young Edward Wins- 
low and John Carver, who brought their brides 
from England. These two men became, later on, 
very prominent in American colonial affairs. 

The Pilgrims lived twelve years in Leyden, and 
were noted for their intelligence and thrift ; but 
they were the subject of many a jest back in Eng- 


90 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


land, and were called the “pinched fanatics of 
Leyden ” by the gay courtiers of King James. 

Now, during all these years it was very difficult 
for the English to become accustomed to the 
strange customs and language of the Dutch ; and 
try as hard as they might, some of them could not 
make enough money to keep the wolf from the 
door. 

The boys were going off to sea, or joining the 
army, for want of anything else to do, and the 
children were fast learning the Dutch language 
and ways of living. 

The Pilgrims were still greatly attached to Eng- 
land, and wished to find a home where they might 
live in the dear old English way, and at the same 
time be free to worship as they pleased. They 
planned to go to South America, and then they 
thought they would go to the new colony in Vir- 
ginia ; but when they heard of a beautiful river 
which Henry Hudson had discovered while on a 
voyage for the Dutch, they said this was the prom- 
ised land for which they had sought ; and as King 
James claimed the river on account of the discov- 
eries of the Cabots, they resolved to obtain his per- 
mission to settle on its banks. 

So they sent Elder William Brewster to England 
to act as their agent in the matter. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


91 


At first they were refused the right to settle in 
America, because they were Pilgrims, but after 
spending much time and money, they were allowed 
to plant a colony on the Hudson. 

And so the youngest and strongest of the Pil- 
grim band in Leyden were chosen to go across the 
sea, under the guidance of Elder Brewster, to pre- 
pare the way for the rest. 

Several of the richest of them sold their estates, 
put their money together and bought the little 
ship Speedwell in Amsterdam ; then, with friends 
in England who wished to join them, they hired 
the Mayflower, a larger ship, and soon the Speed- 
well sailed out of the little harbor of Delft Haven 
to meet the Mayflower at Southampton. As these 
young Pilgrims disappeared in the mists of the sea, 
they were followed by the prayers of the Leyden 
congregation, who had accompanied them to the 
little seaport town to say good-bye. It was a sad 
parting ; for it was a long and dangerous voyage 
to America, and they knew not if they might ever 
meet again. In a few days the Speedwell and the 
Mayflower set their sails against the wind ; but the 
Speedwell was found to be leaky, and both ships 
put into port, where they lay at anchor eight days 
for repairs. 

Again the sails were set ; but the shattered 


92 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


Speedwell could not make headway, sailed back to 
Plymouth, and was finally abandoned as unsea- 
worthy. The most zealous of her passengers went 
on board the Mayflower ; and on the sixth of Sep- 
tember, 1620, one hundred and two brave men 
and women and children set their faces toward the 
sea. 

Some one said that God sifted a whole nation, 
that he might send choice grain into the wilder- 
ness, and I think you will agree with this saying 
when you know what these people accomplished in 
America during the next few years. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


93 


CHAPTER XIY. 

PLYMOUTH. 

Winds tossed the Mayflower about the sea for 
nine long weeks, and when at last land came in 
sight, it proved to be Cape Cod. This was several 
hundred miles north of the Hudson river, where 
the Pilgrims wished to go, and so they turned 
about, to sail to the south. But the ship ran into 
shoals and breakers, and narrowly escaped a wreck. 
So they returned to Cape Cod harbor ; but there 
were only long stretches of white sand banks, and 
a few straggling pines along this coast, and they 
decided to send off explorers to look for a better 
place to land. 

Before any left the ship, they made a set of laws 
which all promised to obey, and chose John Car- 
ver to be governor of the colony for one year. 

Then Captain Miles Standish and a few others 
went in search of a town site. 

Every man had his musket, sword and corslet, 
and the little party crept cautiously along, some- 
times skirting the shore of the bay in an open boat, 
and sometimes pushing their way into the main- 
land on foot. 


94 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


Whenever the explorers returned they had much 
to tell, and all in the ship gathered eagerly around 
them to learn about their adventures. 

Once they said they had seen Indians, a group 
of five or six half-naked, dusky fellows, who ran 
away as fast as their legs would carry them. An- 
other time they found some frozen mounds of earth, 
dug into them with their swords, and found pits 
lined with bark, in which were the baskets of corn 
they brought back. \ None of the Pilgrims had 
ever seen the maize of the Indians, and the good 
women fell straightway to wondering how it might 
be cooked. 

Then Captain Standish told how they had dug 
into another mound, expecting to find more corn, 
but found instead the bones of a man and the dried 
mummy of a little child ; and the skull of the man 
was covered with golden hair. 

Now they knew that the Indians had black hair, 
and wondered what this lonely grave by the sea- 
shore meant. Could it be the grave of one of the 
yellow-haired Norsemen, who were said to have 
dwelt for a time in this region ? The little Pil- 
grims were more curious to know about the little 
child, and talked about it over and over again. 

A long time afterwards they learned of the mas- 
sacre of the Frenchmen, how five of them had been 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


95 


made slaves, and how one had proved himself so 
agreeable to his chief, that he was kindly treated, 
and married to an Indian maiden. Then the little 
Pilgrims wondered if the dead child, with the beads, 
and little bow, and arrow and playthings, scattered 
all around him, were not the son of this French- 
man. But no one ever really knew anything about 
the Indian child and the man of the golden locks, 
who lay asleep together in one grave. 

Once when the explorers returned to the ship, 
they told how William Bradford had been caught 
in an Indian deer trap, and there was great merri- 
ment over the thought of this scholarly man sus- 
pended in mid-air in the fork of a sapling. 

Here and there, from an ambush in the forest, 
they caught sight of Indians, and upon one occa- 
sion were met with a shower of arrows ; but no 
one was injured, and at the sound of the guns the 
Indians fled. 

A whole month was spent in exploring the coast, 
and the winter weather was so severe that their 
clothes were sometimes frozen on them like coats of 
mail. 

But they built their camp-fires under the boughs 
of the fir-trees, and wandered many miles in quest 
of a landing-place. 

On the twenty-first of December, the Pilgrim 


96 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


scouts ran their shallop into the harbor which Cap- 
tain Smith had called Plymouth on his map, and 
were so well pleased with the spot, they decided to 
make it their home ; so they returned to the ship 
with the joyful news, and soon the ship cast anchor 
in Plymouth haven, with the whole company on 
board. They stood on the icy deck with the winds 
blowing through the masts overhead, and the waves 
roaring about the great black hull beneath, and 
sang hymns of praise for deliverance from the 
dangers of the sea. Boatload after boatload left 
the ship. There was joy at setting foot on land 
once more. They gathered fuel and built fires 
under the snow-laden pines. 

The women washed the soiled linen at a spring, 
and the men set about building a shelter. They 
chose a hillside sloping down to Cape Cod Bay, 
and put up a log house large enough for all. Then 
they divided the whole company into nineteen fam- 
ilies, and laid out plots of land where each family 
might build its own house. 

Meanwhile, although the Pilgrims did not know 
anything about it until many years after, the In- 
dians of all that region gathered their powwow 
priests into a gloomy swamp not far from Ply- 
mouth, and for three days and three nights, used 
all their black charms and cursed the white men 



THERE WAS JOY AT SETTING FOOT ON LAND ONCE MORE 



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OF NEW ENGLAND. 


97 


in a most terrible manner. They did not venture 
very near the settlement, but were often seen hov- 
ering about the forests. The Pilgrims were in 
such fear of an attack, that they formed a military 
company, with Miles Standish as captain, and built 
a platform of logs on the brow of the hill, and 
mounted it with cannon. 

It would take a long time to tell of the hard- 
ships endured by the settlers of New England, as 
they tried to build homes in the snow. They had 
difficulty to get stone, mortar and thatch ; they 
lacked boats to unload their goods from the ship ; 
disease fell upon them, and the sick lay in the 
crowded ship, or in half-built cabins heaped around 
with snow-drifts, so that sometimes two or three 
died in one day. 

But the living did not falter. They carried out 
the dead and buried them in a bluff by the river, 
and smoothed over the graves that the Indians 
might not know how few remained alive. 

At one time there were but seven well ones in the 
whole company, and when the long, dreary winter 
was ended, fifty-one of the hundred and two were 
dead. 


98 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


CHAPTER XY. 

AN EXCHANGE OF VISITS. 

When the long, dreary winter was over and 
joyous spring had come, nature seemed to whisper 
glad tidings to the sad-eyed Pilgrims. The snow 
melted away into babbling brooks, the trees put 
forth green leaves, the little wild flowers dotted 
the hillside and peeped from among the mosses of 
the forest, while the songs of many strange birds 
filled the air with music. 

The Pilgrims had not yet seen an Indian in their 
village, but one day a tall, handsome Indian came 
boldly into camp and called out, “ Welcome, Eng- 
lishmen! Welcome, Englishmen!’’ He said he 
was Samoset, and had learned English of the fish- 
ermen in the north. 

He said they were on a spot where, four years 
before, the Massachusetts Indians had dwelt ; but 
this tribe had all been swept away by a great 
plague, except about a hundred warriors. The 
Wampanoags, whose king was Massasoit, were 
their nearest neighbors, and they, too, had suflered 
from the plague, so that of more than three thou- 
sand warriors only five hundred remained alive. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


99 


Samoset seemed very intelligent, and the Pil- 
grims soon saw that he would be of service in 
making treaties of peace with the tribes, and acting 
as interpreter. 

When he took his leave, they presented him 
with a knife, a bracelet and a ring, and he prom- 
ised to come back again and bring some friends, 
who would trade in beaverskins. 

A few days after his first visit, Samoset returned 
with several Indians, to trade some skins for 
trinkets ; but, as it was Sabbath, the Pilgrims 
would not buy their skins, and told them to come 
some other time. Very soon after, Samoset came 
again in company with Squanto, who was one of 
the Indians stolen by Captain Hunt. He had es- 
caped from his slavery in Spain, and returned with 
some English fishermen to his old home on Massa- 
chusetts Bay, only to find that all of his friends 
were dead with the plague. In vain he searched 
for his dear ones along the rivers and through the 
hills of the beautiful country. Skulls and bones 
lay bleaching in the sun ; here and there were 
wigwams falling to pieces with decay, but there 
was no trace of any of his people, and at last the 
heart-broken Indian gave up his vain quest and 
sought a place among the warriors of Massasoit. 
He now came with Samoset to bring word that the 


100 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


great sachem, Massasoit, was on his way to Ply- 
mouth, and wished an interview with the governor. 
And sure-enough, our old friend Massasoit soon 
appeared on a neighboring hilltop. He looked 
much older than when we saw him last ; but his 
bearing was that of a true king of the forest. He 
was painted a dark red and wore skins and a neck- 
lace of beards teeth ; and a long knife swung on his 
bosom fastened by a string. His companions were 
all painted, some red, some black, some white and 
yellow ; some wore skins and some were without 
clothing. 

He did not hasten with a smile of welcome as 
we would expect him to do, when we remember 
how eagerly he once watched for the coming of 
the white men. 

Squanto had told him that these white men were 
a powerful people, who dwelt across the morning 
waters, in palaces of marble ; that their numbers 
were as the sands of the sea, and that they had the 
plague buried under their storehouses, and could 
send it forth upon any people they pleased. 

So whether he and his warriors might be kid- 
napped, or striker! with disease, or received with 
the kindness of brothers, was a great question in 
the mind of Massasoit, as he came over the brow of 
Strawberry Hill with sixty of his followers. He 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


101 


remained standing in the distance until Edward 
Winslow was sent out with Squanto to meet him. 
Winslow bore presents to the chief, and told him 
that King James, of England, saluted him as a 
brother with peace and love. 

Now Massasoit was pleased with the gifts and 
this greeting ; but he was very cautious. 

He said that Winslow should remain as a host- 
age with his warriors, while he and a few trusted 
followers were at the audience with the governor. 

They were conducted across the brook, which 
ran between the hill and the town, by Captain 
Standish and six musketeers in full armor, to the 
largest building in Plymouth. Here rugs and 
cushions were placed upon the floor on which to 
sit. Governor Carver soon entered, with drums 
beating and trumpets blowing, and greeted the 
sachem with great ceremony. 

The two sat together on a rug. Massasoit trem- 
bled and seemed much impressed with the splen- 
dor of his reception. 

There was a feast and a smoke. Then the first 
treaty made in New England was signed, in which 
pledges of peace and good will were exchanged. 
All offenders should be given up to be punished. 
If the English engaged in war, the Wampanoags 
would aid them ; if the Wampanoags were at- 


102 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


tacked, the English would help them. These were 
the terms of a peace which lasted for fifty years, 
and Massasoit returned to his lodge at So warns, 
well pleased with his visit. 

Squanto taught the Pilgrims how to plant corn. 
Seven houses were soon finished, besides the large 
town house, and the Pilgrims began to feel so en- 
couraged that when the Mayflower returned to 
England, not one of the Colonists went back with 
her. They had adopted ^^ew England as their 
home. 

Scarcely had the good ship departed, bearing 
greetings and sad messages to the friends in Lon- 
don, when Governor Carver died. This new sor- 
row was felt deeply, for the noble man had been 
loved by all. 

Then William Bradford was chosen governor. 
He remembered that the Indians had never been 
paid for the corn which the Pilgrims had taken 
from the pits when exploring the coast. So he 
sent Edward Winslow and Squanto to Massasoit to 
find out the owners of the corn, that they might be 
paid ; and it was also their mission to tell the chief 
it was impossible to feed so many Indians as now 
came to Plymouth to make friendly visits. 

When the messengers arrived at the lodge of the 
chief, he was not at home, but his wife and children 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


103 


were there and received them kindly, though they 
glanced with fear at the muskets and stood very 
near the door as if ready to fly at every movement. 

When Winslow saw Massasoit coming in the dis- 
tance, he fired off his musket in salute, and then 
presented him with a coat of red cotton trimmed 
with lace, and a fine copper chain. Massasoit put 
on the coat immediately, hung the chain about his 
neck, and was so delighted with these gifts that it 
was a long time before business could be trans- 
acted. 

His wife gazed on him in admiration as he strut- 
ted about the wigwam. 

Then he summoned many tributary chiefs to meet 
Winslow, and told them they must remember that 
he was Massasoit, sachem of thirty villages, and it 
was his wish that they make treaties of peace and 
commerce with the white men of Plymouth. 

All the warriors agreed to do this. Who could 
resist such a magnificent sachem in scarlet coat 
and glittering chain ? 

Now Winslow stayed three days and nights in 
the lodge of Massasoit, and the truth must be told 
of this visit, even at the risk of casting doubts 
on the good housekeeping of the hostess. When 
it was time to sleep, Winslow was invited to share 
the bed with Massasoit and his wife. 


104 


THE STORY OE THE INDIANS 


The bed was several planks raised a few inches 
from the ground and covered with skins. He was 
put at the foot of the bed and two warriors lay 
down beside him, and what with the snoring and 
crowding of his four bed-fellows, and the biting of 
the fleas and lice, he hardly slept a wink. 

Food was also scarce just at this time, and the 
chief was greatly grieved and shamed that he could 
not better entertain his white brothers. 

But great good came of this visit to Massasoit. 
Friendship was cemented with several new tribes, 
and a trading-post was established at So warns, so 
that there was soon a well-worn path between a 
merchant of Mount Hope Neck and the settlers in 
Plymouth. 

Now when you hear the word merchant you 
probably think of great warehouses down by the 
busy wharves, where vessels are coming in and go- 
ing out all day long, and of long salesrooms lined 
with shelves of goods, with messenger boys flying 
in every direction, clerks busy and smiling, and 
bookkeepers writing in huge leather-bound vol- 
umes. But this merchant on the Taunton river, 
with whom the Pilgrims traded, had a very differ- 
ent way of transacting business. 

His shipping was the slender canoe, hid down on 
the bank among the bushes, his warehouse, a wig- 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


105 


warn of skins on the hillside, and his shelving, bas- 
kets of willow. 

He had a large assortment to sell, and was kept 
busy all the year round. 

He traded his stock for English wares, and then 
sold these to more remote Indians, who were igno- 
rant of their worth. Thus he often made double 
profit. 

In winter he had mats, baskets, brooms and wild 
turkeys, the skins of beavers, otter, mink, bears, 
moose, deer, raccoons, and many other fur-bearing 
animals which filled the forests of New England at 
that time. 

In summer this merchant had all kinds of fish to 
sell, and strawberries, whortleberries, raspberries, 
blackberries, sassafras and grapes. 

In autumn he had a supply of cranberries, veni- 
son and tobacco. 

In exchange for these things the Pilgrims gave 
nails, chests, fish-hooks, water-pails, hatchets, glass 
bottles, beads, iron pots, woolen blankets, cider 
and whiskey. 

But they soon refused to traffic in whiskey. The 
Indians had a diseased appetite for the “ fire wa- 
ter,^’ and would not stop drinking until they were 
intoxicated. If there were not enough liquor to 
make all in a company drunk, they would draw 


106 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


lots, and some drank while the rest sat about 
watching the carousing of their more fortunate 
friends. So the good people of Plymouth quit sell- 
ing whiskey. 

They would not sell muskets, either, for fear of 
their lives, and made a law forbidding the sale of 
any firearms to the Indians. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


107 


CHAPTER XVI. 

THANKSGIVING. 

When autumn came, a stout fortress crowned the 
hill at Plymouth, from which a broad street led 
down to the harbor. 

Seven log houses had been built, and more were 
going up ; but some stood unfinished, because 
death had stayed the hands of the builders. 

The Pilgrims were sore at heart for the loss of 
over half of their colony ; but they would not mur- 
mur. They said it was the will of heaven, and 
they would submit. 

They were so grateful for an abundant harvest, 
which promised food for those who were living, 
that they resolved to offer thanks to Cod. 

So, when the corn was gathered, and the fuel 
laid in for the winter. Governor Bradford ap- 
pointed a day of thanksgiving. 

Four men killed fowl enough to last a week. 
There was a great store of wild turkeys, and from 
that day to this, the turkey has been an honored, 
though silent, guest of every New England thanks- 
giving. 


108 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


Then the governor invited King Massasoit to 
join in this first thanksgiving dinner. The great 
chief came in his red coat and best paint, oiled to 
a turn, and with him came seventy warriors in feath- 
ers and fine skins, decorated with quills and wam- 
pum. They brought five deer from the forest to 
add to the feast, and roasted them on spits over 
the fire built out in the open. There was little 
ceremony needed in serving a dinner to Indians, 
who were accustomed to eat with their fingers, and 
drink from dried gourds ; but for all that, the 
women were kept very busy preparing food for a 
hundred and twenty people. There were only 
four of these noble women left who had sailed in 
the Mayflower, and they were pale and thin with 
long months of nursing the sick, and their faces 
were lined with care. 

Yet all the Pilgrims tried to remember that it 
was a day of thanksgiving, and there were feats 
with firearms and bows and arrows, and there were 
quoits and many other games in which the Indians 
joined. Taking it altogether, the first thanksgiv- 
ing day in New England was a great success. 

Soon after this, the ship Fortune sailed into port 
with thirty Pilgrims from Leyden. There was 
mingled joy and sorrow in the reunion. Some of 
the bravest and best of the Plymouth friends were 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


109 


gone, and tears would come as the sad story was 
told. 

Then when the Fortune set sail to return home, 
her seamen had to be supplied with food, and that 
reduced the supplies still more. So the corn just 
gathered had to be carefully distributed, or it 
would not hold out till the next harvest. It had 
taken the scant store in Leyden to pay for the 
voyage across the sea, and the newcomers had no 
provisions with them. 

N’ow, patient in tribulation and reverent in wor- 
ship, as these Pilgrims were, there were some 
among them who were not Christians, and these 
caused a great deal of trouble. 

Even while the Mayflower still lay at anchor in 
Cape Cod Bay, a wilful boy got at the gunpowder, 
made squibs and shot oif fowling-pieces between 
decks where there was a half barrel of powder, 
and kept the timid women and children in constant 
terror by his lawless conduct. 

Then a f ew of those who came over in the For- 
tune were not in harmony with the little commu- 
nity. 

The Pilgrims did not believe in celebrating 
Christmas as a holiday, and when Christmas day 
came Governor Bradford marshaled his men into 
line, as was his custom, to go to the forest to fell 


no 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


down trees. Some from the Fortune said that it 
was against their consciences to work on Christmas, 
and refused to go with the rest. But when the 
tired men returned from their labor for dinner, 
these over-scrupulous fellows were pitching bars 
and playing at other games in great glee. 

The governor told them it was against his con- 
science that some should play while others toiled 
to supply them comforts ; and ordered them to 
quit their games, and, either sit in the house at wor- 
ship, or go out in the field to work. 

But, after all is said, these troublesome members 
were easily managed, for the Pilgrims made their 
own laws, and the doughty Captain Miles Standish 
enforced them with his musketeers. The “black 
sheep ” preferred to remain in the fold at Ply- 
mouth, rather than risk their lives in the howling 
wilderness. 

There were constant rumors of plotting among 
the Narragansetts, and all were united in common 
defense from the threatened attack. 

Canonicus, the chief of the Narragansetts, had 
seemed friendly to the Pilgrims at first ; but when 
he saw the alliance between them and his old 
enemies, the Warnpanoags, he fell into a great 
rage. 

The plague had left his own tribe untouched, 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


11 ] 


while it had reduced the warriors of his rival to a 
handful. 

Had he not been sharpening his tomahawk for 
two years to exterminate the few who were left ? 
Had not the powwows been certain of victory? 
And now these white men had come with their 
fire-belching muskets to strengthen the feeble arm 
of Massasoit. What was to be done? “It was 
easy enough,” said Canonicus. . He would march 
his thousands against the white men. He would 
wipe the handful of Palefaces off the face of the 
earth. Their hair was short ; but corslets and hel- 
mets and firearms would more than make up for 
bad scalps. 

So one day, as Grove rnor Bradford was busy 
with his papers, the door of his room swung noise- 
lessly open, and an Indian messenger laid upon the 
table a bundle of arrows tied with a snake skin. 

Squanto said that this was a declaration of war, 
and that the Narragansetts could muster about five 
thousand warriors. 

Now the best that could be done at Plymouth 
was to arm fifty men ; but it would never do to 
show fear, and so the governor filled the snake 
skin with powder and bullets and sent it back. 
This frightened the Narragansetts. They thought 
the spirit of the thunderbolts, which rent the 


112 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


mighty oaks of the forest, dwelt in the strange 
mixture that went into a gun ; and they handled 
the snake skin, gorged to the fangs with the deadly 
stuiF, as a dynamite bomb would be handled to-day. 

It passed from chief to chief, and, at last, came 
back to Plymouth with a pledge of peace. 

The Pilgrims now prepared for future attacks 
from the Indians, and built a stronger log fort on 
the brow of the nearest hill, which also served for 
a meeting-house ; and they enclosed the whole 
settlement with a high fence or stockade, and shut 
the gates every evening at sunset. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


113 


CHAPTER XYIL 

THE MEDICINE MEN. 

In 1622 two ships sailed into Plymouth harbor 
with about sixty men from London, who had come 
to America to engage in the fur trade. 

They had little food of their own, and stayed at 
Plymouth for the most of the summer, enjoying 
the hospitality of the Pilgrims ; but they were not 
welcome guests, for they were lawless men, and 
thought that money-making was the chief aim of 
life. Late in the autumn, they chose Weymouth, 
near the mouth of a small stream emptying into 
Boston Bay, as a fishing station. They were un- 
grateful for the favors they had received, and 
made much sport of the Pilgrims. They said 
these pious Plymouth saints spent too much time 
on their knees, and declared that the fish trade 
was the foundation of wealth. But, as we shall 
see, they soon found that fish alone made a very 
slippery foundation for them to build upon. In 
the spring of 1623, news came to Plymouth that 
Massasoit was ill, and Edward Winslow and an in- 
terpreter were sent with medicines to visit him. 


114 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


On the way they heard that the great chief was 
dead, whereupon the interpreter broke out with 
loud lamentations. “ Neen womasu sagamus ! 
Neen womasu sagamus \ ” he wailed, “Many have 
I known, but none like thee ! He was not a liar ; 
he was not bloody and cruel like other Indians. 
He was a wise sachem, but never ashamed to ask 
advice. He was easy to be reconciled toward such 
as had offended him. He governed his men better 
with few strokes than others did with many. Neen 
womasu sagamus ! 

Thus the old man mourned, and the rude March 
winds kept time with his cries. But farther on, 
they met some Indians, who said that the powwows 
were working great charms over Massasoit, and 
that he was still alive. 

As they hurried on through the leafless forests, 
Winslow asked his guide who the powwows were. 

“They are great medicine men,’^ answered the 
guide. “ They are wise men who know how to 
outwit the evil spirit who sends disease. When 
they are called in to see a sick man, they first place 
him in a room built of stones, and heated by fires 
lighted around the outside of it. Then they put 
red-hot stones in the room and sprinkle water over 
them with cedar branches until a vapor rises. 
When the patient is in a sweat, they carry him out 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


115 


to a running stream, and plunge him into the cold 
water. 

“Now, if this fails to restore the sick man,^^ 
continued the guide, “ there are other remedies 
which these medicine men use. There are the 
juices of berries and leaves, the bark and roots of 
trees, the skins of snakes and the warts of frogs, 
dried and pounded into powder, and there are va- 
rious other cures, which the common people know 
nothing about. 

“ Sometimes the powwow seeks out a Manitou 
in the woods, and when he returns he says there 
must be a great feast before the sick man can get 
well ; and so game is brought by all the friends, 
and there is feasting and dancing and shouting 
until devoted relatives become so wild with excite- 
ment, that they often spring, naked, into snow- 
drifts, and dance about for hours in the coldest 
weather, without the least injury to themselves. 
All this generally makes the patient well. 

“Then, too, after many prayers, the powwow 
sometimes announces that gifts from friends will 
cure the sick man ; and so all his friends, from far 
and near, bring presents of skins and wampums, 
fish-hooks, moccasins, pouches, and everything 
they think he would like if he were well again, 
and he often gets well after that.” 


116 


THE STORY OP THE INDIANS 


“ I should really think,” said Winslow, laugh- 
ing, “that it would be a great temptation to get 
sick for the sake of such treatment as that!” 

“Ah,” said the guide, “you think someone 
might just pretend to be sick. That would not be 
possible, for the powwow would see through his 
deception.” 

“DoesnT the powwow receive some of the pres- 
ents?” 

“Oh, yes ; he is given half when the sick are 
restored to health.” 

‘ ‘ Do you not think a wicked powwow might 
persuade some man to become suddenly sick in 
order to share the profits of the gift cure?” asked 
Winslow. 

“ Ah, no ; ” said the guide, “ he would then lose 
his power over the evil spirit, and could never 
work cures again.” 

‘ ‘ If one medicine man fails to restore health, do 
the friends change to another doctor?” 

“Ah, no, they never do that. If a man dies, 
the powwow is held in still greater esteem than if 
he had recovered, for he must have been very 
brave to attack an evil spirit that was so powerful 
as to kill the sick, in spite of everything that had 
been done to prevent it.” 

They had now reached the wigwam of Massasoit, 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


117 


and as they entered, they found the room packed 
close with mourning friends, many of whom were 
already painted black, as a sign that death was 
near. Tears ran like rain down their cheeks, and, 
mingling with the soot, made them look the pic- 
ture of woe. 

Several powwows were yelling their incanta- 
tions, rattling tortoise-shells in his ears to drive 
away the evil spirit, and crowding about him so 
closely that he must soon have died in sheer self- 
defense. There he lay, cold, wasted and speech- 
less, on his couch of skins. 

When Winslow took his hand and spoke, he 
opened his eyes feebly, and whispered through 
shrunken lips, “Oh, Winslow, I shall never see 
you again.’’ 

Winslow gave him some simple remedies, made 
broth to give him strength, and in a few days re- 
stored him to health. 

Massasoit was so pleased with the tender care of 
his white friends that he revealed a deep-laid plot 
among the Massachusetts Indians to destroy first 
the little settlement at Weymouth, and then fall 
upon Plymouth. 

He said the tribes feared the little man Standish 
more than all the others put together, and once, 
while he was out hunting, had planned to kill him. 


118 


THE STORY OP THE INDIANS 


So an Indian slept on the ground near Standish, 
intending to strike him dead as soon as he slept ; 
but the night happened to be very cold, the little 
captain could not sleep, and kept turning before 
the fire so that there had been no chance to take 
him unawares. All the Indians were afraid of a 
hand-to-hand fight with him, for they thought he 
was in league with the evil spirit. 

Massasoit said that he himself had been asked 
to join in the league for the destruction of the 
white men ; but he had refused to do so, and was 
now glad, for he knew that the white men had 
saved his life. 

When Winslow heard that the attack on Wey- 
mouth was to be very soon, he hastened with all 
speed to Plymouth, to spread the alarm. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


119 


CHAPTER XVIII. 

WEYMOUTH. 

The colony at Weymouth had caused the plot- 
ting among the Massachusetts, which Massasoit 
revealed to Winslow. 

The Indians had welcomed the Weymouth men 
to Boston Bay because they loved and respected 
the Pilgrims at Plymouth, and were glad to have 
a trading station near them. 

At first, the fishermen paid double prices for 
corn, fish and furs, and everything went swim- 
mingly, on the shores of the beautiful bay. 

But it was not long before they began to show 
what rascals they were. 

They wasted their own provisions, and then 
hunted out the hiding-places of the corn belong- 
ing to the Indians. 

They hid themselves about the camps, and, when 
the squaws were not looking, filched the succotash 
as it cooked in the pots, cut down the dried veni- 
son, and robbed the wigwams of strings of pump- 
kin and squash. 

When winter came on, they found themselves 
without food, and in the midst of bitter enemies. 


120 


THE STORY OE THE INDIANS 


The shell-fish, in the clustering islands of the bay, 
were covered with broken blocks of ice ; the acorns, 
on the “ blue hills ” to the west, were hidden under 
the snow ; there was no game abroad ; and so 
these wretched fishermen sat about the fire, in their 
cold cabins, through many dreary weeks. Some 
starved to death, others froze to death, and the 
few, that survived till spring, scattered about the 
forest, grubbing through the snow for ground- 
nuts ; one, in trying to gather shell-fish, was so 
weak from hunger, that when he was stuck in the 
mud, he could not pull himself out, and the tide 
washed him into the sea. 

In the end, they became servants to the Indians, 
and cut wood or fetched water for a cup of corn. 

And so the Indians scorned them, and called 
them “ Paleface squaws,” and began to plot to kill 
them, and then march against Plymouth, which 
was twenty-five miles to the south. 

One of the traders overheard their talk, and, 
without saying a word to his companions, for fear 
they might betray him, made up his mind to seek 
aid from the people of Plymouth. 

He was weak from want of food, he did not know 
the way through the wilderness, and he very well 
knew he would lose his life, if he were seen going 
toward Plymouth, for every path was guarded to 


Oi" NEW ENGLAND. 


121 


prevent communication between the two colonies. 
But desperation lent the poor man courage, and 
very early in the morning he took his hoe and went 
digging about in the snow, as if in search of nuts, 
until he reached the Indian wigwams. Ko Indians 
were about ; they were still fast asleep. 

Then he ran with all his might, going through 
the brambles and around the snow which lay in 
the hollows, that his footprints might not be seen. 

The sky was clouded, and during the day he 
could not see by the sun in what direction he was 
going ; but at night he was guided by the north 
star and staggered on, with the wolves howling 
about him. 

At last, on the third day, the gates of Plymouth 
came in sight. 

Meanwhile, Edward Winslow had returned from 
his visit to Massasoit, and told of the plots against 
Weymouth. 

The Pilgrims were in great distress when they 
learned of the plots of the Massachusetts, with whom 
they had hoped to keep peace. 

They knew that the fishermen, at Weymouth, 
were to blame for the trouble ; but it was now too 
late to talk about that. They must find some way 
to defend themselves. There they were, a few 
feeble men, women and children, shut in between 


122 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


the cruel sea and the still more cruel forest. There 
seemed little escape from the tomahawk of the 
^savages, if they wished to strike the blow. 

Then, too, a ship had, not long before, brought 
the news of a massacre of white men in James- 
town, Virginia, in which more had perished than 
were now alive in Plymouth. 

It seemed their duty to fight for their lives as 
best they could. 

So they gathered in the meeting-house on the 
hill, and had just agreed to make a sudden attack 
and seize the leaders of the hostile tribe, when the 
foot-sore messenger, from Weymouth, fell, fainting, 
at the gate of the town. 

He told his story, and they decided to act at 
once. Miles Standish was placed in command of 
the expedition, and set off in a shallop, with eight 
of his men and the same guide who had been with 
Winslow at the bedside of Massasoit. 

They bore themselves as traders, in search of 
furs. Through the ice and surf, in the dreary 
weather, they reached Boston Harbor. 

There lay the ship Swan at anchor, with no 
fishermen to be seen. They searched through the 
blockhouse and the miserable little cabins of the 
settlement, but no one was stirring. 

They were greatly frightened, for they thought 



THE FOOTSORE MESSENGER FROM WEYMOUTH FELL FAINTING 
AT THE GATE OF THE TOWN. 




OF NEW ENGLAND. 


123 


they had come too late. They fired off their mus- 
kets in the direction of the forest, and soon some 
stragglers came in sight, who had been out in a 
vain quest for food. 

Standish gave them corn, and when he told them 
of their danger, they were thoroughly alarmed, and 
promised to obey all his orders. 

Now, the Indians thought the white men had 
only come to trade in furs, and they had grown so 
accustomed to jibe and jeer at the “ squaw whites ” 
that they continued to do so. The chief, Pecsuot, 
who was a giant fellow, danced around Standish, 
boasting how he could make mince-meat of him, 
if he wished. The chief, Wetuwamet, sharpened 
his knife in his presence, felt its sharp point, and 
told of what wonderful things it could do at the 
throat of the white man. 

But the wise Standish bore all these taunts with- 
out a sign of displeasure or suspicion. He acted 
quite as if he thought the Indians had come to trade 
in furs. 

Finally, Wetuwamet and Pecsuot, with some at- 
tendants, walked into the room where Standish 
and his men were. 

The time, agreed upon, had come. The door was 
shut. The little captain seized the giant Pecsuot ; 
and each of the others grappled with an Indian. 


124 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


Not a war-whoop was sounded by the amazed In- 
dians. Each determined to fight it out. The 
struggle was terrible ; the clash of weapons, the 
hoarse breathing of the wrestlers, and the groans 
of the dying, were all that was heard in the room. 

In the end, every Indian was killed but one, and 
he was taken prisoner. 

Then Standish hastened to the village wigwams 
for the rest ; but the alarm had been given, and 
only women and children were there. 

The Indian boys were frightened out of their 
wits at the approach of the party, and seeing that 
the women were always spared, they ran about 
screaming ]SFeesquaes\ neesquaes\^^ “I am a 
woman ! I am a woman ! ” 

The soldiers now started in pursuit of the war- 
riors. They had many skirmishes, in which sev- 
eral Indians were killed, and they drove the fugi- 
tives from swamp to swamp, until they had fled 
out of the country. 

Then the little band of eight men returned home 
without the loss of one, bearing the ghastly head 
of Wetuwamet, which they hung on the battle- 
ments of the fort, as a warning to his tribe. 

This seems hardly what we would expect from 
Christians, yet we must remember that, three hun- 
dred years ago, it was the custom to cut off the 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


125 


heads of enemies and expose them to public view. 
But for all that, this cruel act seems unworthy of 
the Pilgrims, who, we are accustomed to think, 
were better than others of their time. Their be- 
loved pastor, Robinson, when the news had crossed 
the sea to Leyden, wrote: “How happy a thing 
had it been, if you had converted some before you 
had killed any ! ” 

The Pilgrims agreed that if they did not kill a 
few, they would have to kill many ; for other tribes 
would soon join the Massachusetts, and it was 
thought even possible that Massasoit might break 
his pledges ; though if they had known this great 
chief from his childhood, as we do, they would 
never have doubted him for a moment. 

The Massachusetts tribes never recovered from 
their defeat. Between the plague and the Pil- 
grims, they were reduced to a mere handful of 
warriors, who flitted through the forests like the 
ghosts of their former proud race. 

At last, because they were afraid to come them- 
selves, they sent a squaw to Plymouth with offer- 
ings of peace, and soon after a treaty was signed 
which was kept for many years. 

As for the colony at Weymouth, some went 
south to Plymouth with Standish, others packed 
what little they had and sailed in the Swan to the 


126 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


fishing stations along the bays on the coast of 
Maine. 

And this was the end of the first colony of 
Weymouth. 

Hardly had the Pilgrims come to see how 
sweet peace was again, when a new danger beset 
them. 

The summer sun poured down its hot rays for six 
long weeks without a drop of moisture. The earth 
turned to dust, the brooks ran dry, the leaves on 
the trees curled and withered, and the corn that had 
come up, wilted and turned yellow. 

The people were in great distress ; but they still 
had faith that Grod would not desert them. They 
gathered into the meeting-house and prayed ear- 
nestly for rain. A few Indians who chanced to 
be present, heard what they were praying for, and 
rose from their seats to stand in the door and 
watch the effect of the prayers on the sky. Black 
clouds began to appear overhead, and soon the 
rain poured down in torrents. 

The drooping blades of corn revived. The trees 
put forth new leaf, and all nature joined the pa- 
tient Pilgrims in a song of praise. 

The news of these Christian prayers spread 
among the Indians along the coast, and did much 
to restore the good name which the white men 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 127 

had lost through the bad behavior of the traders 
at Weymouth. 

But while the young corn was flourishing in the 
fields, the supply of old corn became smaller and 
smaller day by day, until it was reduced to a 
pint, and the governor distributed five grains to 
each person. This was all the Pilgrims had to eat, 
except shell-fish and wild game. 

The children were pale and crying for food, when 
fishermen from Maine put in at the harbor, and 
sold provisions enough to last till the bountiful 
harvest. 


128 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


CHAPTER XIX. 

MERRYMOUNT. 

While the Pilgrims in Plymouth were strug- 
gling for bread, Captain John Smith’s pamphlet 
about this wonderful Land of the Bays, was excit- 
ing more and more interest. “ Of all the four 
parts of the world that I have seen,” wrote Smith, 
“I would rather live here than anywhere else.” 
He told the people of England about the shoals of 
cod in this region ; and in 1622 as many as thirty- 
five ships came to New England to fish. The 
Plymouth merchants, who claimed all the country, 
appealed to King James to forbid fishing without 
the permission of their company. But the busy 
fishermen said that the sea was free, and one might 
as well try to keep them from breathing air or 
drinking water, as from taking draughts of fish in 
the boundless waters of the New England bays. 

So they kept on coming, and their vessels sailed 
back into every port of Europe, laden with the fish 
they had caught and dried on the coast. 

The fishing stations of Portsmouth and Dover 
were built on the strawberry bank of the Piscata- 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


129 


qua in New Hampshire, and clusters of rude houses 
thatched with bark, were scattered along the coast 
of Maine. 

Farther south, at Cape Ann and along the wind- 
ing curves of Massachusetts Bay, fishing posts 
stood, like lighthouses, where a busy trade was 
carried on. 

Besides these fishermen and common trades- 
people, many of the gentry of England came to 
the New World in search of adventure. 

‘‘ What a field for the angler,” they cried, where 
a dozen ditferent varieties of fish would bite the 
hook in one lazy summer afternoon. 

“What a change from the falcon and hounds, to 
plunge into the gloomy forests, where strange 
beasts lie in ambush for the juicy white meat of an 
Englishman ! ” 

And so the wilds of America became as fascin- 
ating to the sportsmen of Europe, as the jungles of 
India are to-day. 

In 1625 Thomas Morton, a young lawyer of fine 
family, and some boon companions, crossed the 
sea to get all the enjoyment they could out of the 
New World, and at the same time make their for- 
tunes in the fur trade. They built cabins at Mount 
Wallaston, at the mouth of a winding stream, 
which emptied iiito Boston Bay. It was an ideal 


130 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


spot. Out in the bay lay beautiful islands abound- 
ing in shell-fish, and beyond the beach wide 
stretches of meadow sloped up to hill and forest, 
bringing game within easy flight of an arrow. 

To the south, in plain view from the hill, stood 
the lonely blockhouse of Weymouth. 

But these young fellows learned no lessons from 
the ruins of Weymouth, and proceeded to live in a 
very reckless fashion, indeed. 

They laughed gayly at the “brethren’^ of 
Plymouth, and declared that life was too short to 
spend so much time in praying and keeping the 
ten commandments. 

They called their settlement “ Merryrnount,’^ 
and cut down a giant pine-tree, eighty feet high, 
for a May-pole. 

Such a high pole had never been seen in old 
England, and to show the giant of the forest due 
respect, they brought it into camp with great cer- 
emony, firing off the guns and pistols, blowing 
the horns and shouting like madmen. When the 
revelers had set the pole up, they wound it with 
garlands of sweet, wild flowers, and pasted on 
rhymes about May-day and Flora, the Queen of 
the May. 

They drank ale and rum until their heads were 
light, and then called in the neighboring Indians 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


131 


to help them drink more. They drew the “lasses 
in beaver coats into a dance, and the whole com- 
pany whirled about the May-pole in great glee. 
When the Pilgrims heard of these merry makings, 
they were greatly grieved. They thought dancing 
was wicked, and celebrating May-day was a hea- 
thenish custom. 

But they soon had reason to fear that worse 
things than these might happen. Merrymount be- 
came the meeting-place of wild fishermen and reck- 
less rabble along the whole New England coast. 

Morton and his friends were anxious to make 
their fortunes as quickly as possible, and sold the 
Indians all the rum they wanted. 

So the post became the great centre of trade. 
The bay was full of canoes laden with the furs of 
the otter, the martens, the black wolf and other 
rare animals. 

Cargoes of beaverskins were bought for almost 
nothing, and sold in London at ten shillings a 
pound. 

But rum was not making money fast enough, and 
so they began to teach the Indians how to charge 
muskets and fire them. So eager were the red men 
to possess the thunder, that they paid twenty 
times what the firearms were worth. 

And soon the Plymouth people met them rang- 


132 THE STORY OE THE INDIANS 

ing through the woods, shooting at every object 
they met. 

When Governor Bradford remonstrated with 
Morton for this, he received an impudent answer, 
and the selling of firearms continued until all the 
little English settlements of Massachusetts Bay met 
together, and petitioned Plymouth to help put 
down the troublesome neighbors. 

Governor Bradford again sent a remonstrance 
to the “ Sachem ” of Merrymount, and was again 
met with defiance. 

Then Captain Miles Standish, with his eight 
picked men, was sent up to Boston Bay to admin- 
ister justice. 

Morton was arrested, but escaped in the night 
from his guards, and fled under cover of a violent 
storm to the blockhouse, where he barricaded the 
windows and doors, and prepared to defend him- 
self. 

In the end he was seized and sent to England 
for trial. 

Many months later he returned to America, and, 
for various misdemeanors, was set in the stocks in 
one of the colonies ; and the Indians, ‘‘the poor, 
silly lambs,’’ as he called them, came to gaze at 
their old boon companion, and wondered how he 
had ever been brought so low. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


133 


CHAPTER XX. 

THE PURITANS. 

Besides the Pilgrims, who had set up a church 
of their own, there were many people in England 
called Puritans, who still belonged to the Estab- 
lished Church, but did not wish to conform to all 
its ceremonies. 

So these, too, dared the dangers of the sea, and 
sought homes in America. 

They planted towns along the curving shores of 
Massachusetts Bay, and on a peninsula of three 
low-browed hills, held to the coast by a narrow 
neck of marshland ; they laid out the capital city 
of Boston, with John Winthrop as governor. 

They had brought cattle, horses, plows, machin- 
ery, seeds, fruit-trees and all needful things to de- 
velop the new country. 

And soon Salem, Charlestown, Dorchester, 
Watertown, Roxbury, Lynn and other little Puri- 
tan towns, sent delegates to Boston to make laws 
for the commonweal of all. 

Hunger, disease and death visited the settle- 
ments ; but the brave pioneers built their houses 


134 


THE STORY OP THE INDIANS 


and mills, planted vineyards and orchards, and 
marched straight on in the paths where duty 
seemed to lead them. 

They made peace with the Indians. Chickata- 
bit, chief of the Massachusetts, who paid tribute to 
Massasoit, visited Governor Winthrop, accom- 
panied by his bravest warriors and their wives, to 
make a treaty of alliance against the hostle Tarra- 
tines of Maine. 

But the very next * year, a hundred Tarratine 
braves paddled up the Merrimac under cover of 
the night, fell upon a village of the Massachusetts 
Indians, and killed several before they were fright- 
ened away by the alarm of the English guns. 

An embassy from the Mohegans on the Con- 
necticut river, came to beg that a settlement be 
made on their beautiful river. 

Then Miantonomo, of the great nation of the 
Narragansetts, came in state to Boston to form an 
alliance with Winthrop. 

The governor received him in his own home 
and dined with him, which pleased him greatly. 
Miantonomo went to meeting, and while he was 
listening to the long sermon and noting how the 
white men worshiped, three of his warriors broke 
into a dwelling and stole several articles. 

It was a difficult matter to induce the chief to 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


135 


whip the culprits, and very soon after there were 
rumors that the Narragansetts were plotting mis- 
chief. 

Now there was very little cause for the Indians 
to make trouble with the colonies of New England. 

All the land upon which they settled had been 
bought, and the Massachusetts Bay Company had 
written to the governor, “We pray you to be 
careful that there be none in our precincts per- 
mitted to do any injury in the least kind to the 
heathen people.’’ Of course, some of the traders 
were dishonest. 

Even the wide ocean could not keep all the ras- 
cals from this new world. 

Some way or other, the chaff would come over 
with the wheat in the grain bags ; and the wicked 
found a berth with the good on every ship ; but 
the laws of the colonies were very severe against 
those doing wrong to the Indians. 

In the colonial records is written : “ It is agreed 
that Sir Bichard Saltonstall shall give Indian John 
a hogshead of corn for the hurt his cattle did him 
in the corn.” 

Another Englishman was ordered to be severely 
whipped for theft upon the Indians, branded with 
a hot iron, and then banished. 

When smallpox ravaged the natives, the Pil- 


136 


THE STORY OE THE INDIANS 


grims of Plymouth were much afraid of the infec- 
tion. But hearing the pitiful cries of the sufferers, 
they brought wood and water, and cooked food for 
them while they lived, and buried them decently 
when they died. But there was always a feeling 
of distrust between the two races that now dwelt 
together in the Land of the Bays. No doubt, the 
Indians dimly realized that the white men were 
crowding them out of their hunting-grounds. 

The old familiar sounds of the forests were 
hushed by the lowing of cattle, the bleating of 
sheep and the sharp neighing of the strange horses. 

The forests were being cut down and the 
streams dammed up. 

They gazed with astonishment at the plowman 
who tore up more ground in a day than their clam- 
shells could scrape up in a month. They looked 
with awe on the windmills, as they whisked around 
in the air, biting the corn into meal. 

And while they wondered over the many inven- 
tions, and gazed wistfully at the strange things 
they could not understand, there must have been 
some who were wise enough to see how it all 
would end. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


137 


CHAPTER XXI. 

THE NARRAGANSETTS AND THE PEQUODS. 

The settlements of the white men kept on spread- 
ing. 

Edward Winslow became governor of Plymouth ; 
and, hearing of the beautiful valley of the Connec- 
ticut, he sailed around Cape Cod, past Xantucket 
and Martha^s Vineyard and Mount Hope, where 
Massasoit dwelt, into the broad Connecticut river. 

When he saw what a fair land this valley was, 
with its small streams and beaver villages, its 
meadows and forests and hillsides, he decided to 
plant a colony there. So he sent a blockhouse up 
the river, which soon became the centre of the lit- 
tle trading station of Windsor. 

Then Weathersfield, Hartford and Saybrook, were 
founded on the Connecticut ; and then some Eng- 
lish crossed the Sound, where the periwinkles grew, 
and settled the east end of Long Island. 

Xow, almost all these new towns were built by 
people, who, for one reason or another, had left the 
older towns along the coast. 

Perhaps the strongest reason of all was religious 
persecution. 


138 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


You would hardly expect these Pilgrims and 
Puritans to persecute, when they themselves had 
fled from persecutions. But this they did ; and 
among those who were obliged to seek a new home 
for this cause, was a handsome young minister, 
named Roger Williams. 

He wandered about for weeks, in bitter winter 
weather, living on acorns and the roots of shrubs. 

When at last he reached Mount Hope Neck, 
Massasoit found him, and led him to his wigwam ; 
and when the warm breath of spring had melted 
the snows, the chieftain led the exile to a beautiful 
spot by the side of a dancing brook. “Here is 
your home,” he said, “if you will dwell among 
my people.” The young preacher learned how to 
plant corn, and had begun to build a house, when 
news came from Plymouth that he must move far- 
ther away. 

So, with five faithful friends, he sought a home 
across the bay among the Narragansetts. As they 
paddled along the shore, pleasant voices called out, 
“ Wha-cheer^ “How are you, friends?” 

and they knew that they were welcome. 

After greeting the Indians they passed on up the 
Narragansett river, and near a hill, where a spark- 
ling spring gushed forth, they founded the town 
of Providence. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


139 


In time Newport and Portsmouth were settled 
in this wonderful region of Narragansett Bay, 
which afterward became known as Rhode Island. 

Now, as we have seen, the country along Massa- 
chusetts Bay, Cape Cod Bay and Buzzard’s Bay, 
was almost free of Indians, on account of the plague ; 
but west of Narragansett Bay there had been no 
plague, and thousands of Indians roamed over the 
valleys and hills of that region. 

The Narragansetts were the money coiners, who 
made the wampum beads that passed for money 
everywhere. 

They rounded and polished the periwinkle shells 
for the white beads, and cut the centre of the round 
clams for the black, which were worth twice as much 
as the white. The cutting was done with sharp- 
pointed stones, and was a long and tedious pro- 
cess. Few of the other Indians had the patience 
to make the wampum, and there was no spot in 
the Land of the Bays where the shell-fish was so 
abundant as where the Narragansetts dwelt. 

So they became very powerful. They paid 
tribute to the Mohawks, and thus were free from 
attack ; they ransomed their captives, they bought 
land, and were the most splendid of all the nations 
in wampum-embroidered garments. 

They were very ambitious, and always wishing 


140 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


for more land across the bay where Massasoit dwelt. 
Massasoit was too feeble to defend his land after 
the plague had carried away so many of his war- 
riors, and was just about to be overcome, when the 
white men of Plymouth arrived to protect him. 
Canonicus, the chief of the Narragansetts, sent the 
rattlesnake skin, bound about a bundle of arrows, 
as a declaration of war to these white men, but, 
as we know, the stuffing of powder and bullets 
frightened him into keeping the peace. 

West of the Narragansetts were the Pequods. 
They were the most warlike of all the nations of 
New England, and were noted for their cruelty to 
captives. 

Their sachem was Sassacus, and twenty-six 
chiefs paid him tribute. West of the Pequods, 
beyond the Connecticut river, were the Mohegans, 
whose sachem was Uncas, and just at this time the 
two nations were at war with each other. 

So you can see the English, who had built along 
the Connecticut river, were between the Pequods 
on the east and the Mohegans on the west. 

The Pequods had recently been making war 
upon the Narragansetts east of them, because Ca- 
nonicus was very old, and Miantonomo, his nephew, 
who would succeed him as chief, was very young. 

So Miantonomo and his young wife had made 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


141 


the visit to Governor Winthrop in Boston, to seek 
alliance in case of another attack from his foes. 

The alliance of the Puritans with the Narragan- 
setts so enraged the Pequods that they attacked a 
small English vessel from Massachusetts and killed 
all the crew. 

Sassacus straightway sent messengers to Boston 
to plead that the outrage was committed in self- 
defense, and asked an alliance with the English. 
He gave much wampum as a gift, and promised 
many beaver and otter skins as a tribute. 

So peace was made, and Governor Winthrop in- 
duced the Pequods and the l^arragansetts to bury 
their tomahawks. But now that he no longer 
feared his old enemies, Sassacus permitted many 
outrages against English traders. At last he went 
with his warriors to the Narragansetts, to induce 
them to join him in exterminating the white men 
from Connecticut. “These strangers,^’ he said, 
“are robbing us of our hunting-grounds. They 
will destroy us one by one. Let us be friends, 
and unite against them. Let us fire upon them 
from ambush. Let us lay waste their harvests, and 
starve those whom we do not slay with our knives.” 

The colonies realized how desperate the situation 
would be, if these two powerful nations united 
against them. 


142 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


There was only one man who could prevent this 
alliance, and that was Roger Williams. So messen- 
gers were sent to implore him to visit Canon- 
icus, and persuade him to keep his pledges with the 
English. The young exile forgot his personal in- 
juries, and set out on the dangerous journey. He 
crossed over a rough sea, and traveled many miles 
through forests alive with foes. When, at last, he 
reached the village of the Narragansetts, he found 
the Pequods still urging war. 

He spoke to the aged Canonicus in his own lan- 
guage, and urged him to be true to his treaty with 
the white men. He knew much of the past history 
of the two tribes, and for three days argued the 
case like a lawyer before his jury. 

He pictured the wrongs that the Pequods had 
brought upon the Narragansetts, and so inflamed 
the savage passions for revenge, that in the end 
Canonicus handed back the war belt. Sassacus 
left the wigwam in a towering rage, vowing de- 
struction on the white men. 

Soon after this, thg Narragansetts entered into a 
league with the Puritans in the meeting-house in 
Boston, before all the magistrates and elders. 

It was the signal of their own doom. If they 
had united with the Pequods against the white 
men, they might have brought five thousand war- 



ROGER WILLIAMS PLEADS WITH CANONICUS, 




OF NEW ENGLAND. 


143 


riors into the field, and driven the white men for- 
ever from their valley. 

But the Pequods now stood alone to fight their 
last battle. Their pipe of peace had been smoked 
for the last time in the Yalley of the Connecticut. 


144 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


CHAPTER XXII. 

THE PEQUOD WAR. 

When Sassacus, chief of the Pequods, found him- 
self alone in his war with the English, he built two 
strong forts, one on the bank of the Mystic river, 
and the other six miles farther west. Into these 
he gathered the warriors, squaws and children, 
and prepared to fight to the bitter end. 

Meanwhile no Englishman was safe in the Pequod 
country. 

Fishermen were seized, their hands and feet cut 
off, and then left to die. Many outrages were com- 
mitted which are too horrible even to mention. 

At last a band of Pequods attacked Weathers- 
held on the Connecticut, killed nine men and car- 
ried off two girls. 

There was no time now to wait for the aid prom- 
ised from Plymouth and Boston. 

Captain John Mason, who had once fought the 
Spaniards and was a gallant officer, sailed down 
from Hartford to Saybrook, with ninety Connecti- 
cut soldiers and seventy Mohegan braves. They 
were followed by the defiant shouts of some Pequod 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


145 


warriors who, in war-paint and feathers, stood on 
the banks of the river. 

At Saybrook they met Captain John Underhill, 
with twenty men from Massachusetts. Twenty of 
the Connecticut men were then sent back to protect 
the settlements, and the rest sailed out into Long 
Island Sound. They had decided to surprise the 
Indians by an attack by land instead of by sea, so 
they steered east and passed the harbor where the 
Pequods were waiting for them in one of the forts. 

When the warriors looked out over the water 
from their high, stockade fence, and saw the sails 
disappear in the distance, they leaped on the walls 
and shouted for joy. 

“The white men are' afraid ! The white men 
have fled to Boston for safety ! they cried, and 
brandished the tomahawks whose sharp edges had 
struck such terror to the hearts of their foes. 

But the little fleet kept on its course, and sailed 
out of the Sound to the west shore of Narragansett 
Bay, where Canonicus of the Narragansetts dwelt. 

Ambassadors waited on the old chief, who re- 
ceived them as he sat on the floor surrounded by 
his nobles. 

He listened gravely to Captain Mason while he 
explained the plan for surprise of the Pequod forts ; 
and, when Mason had finished speaking, said the 


146 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


plan looked well on its face ; but the Pequods were 
a powerful nation, the most cruel of all to their 
captives, and he did not want to risk the lives of 
his men in such an uncertain enterprise ; if the 
English wished, they might pass through his ter- 
ritory, hut they must not expect help from his war- 
riors. 

So the line of march began, and soon small bands 
of the Narragansetts began to join the ranks, until 
about two hundred had formed an escort. They 
walked in front and boasted what they would do 
when they reached the fort ; but as they came near 
the stream of water which formed the boundary 
line between the two nations, they began to show 
fear, and many turned back. 

The English continued on their way with their 
faithful Mohegan allies, under the sachem XJncas, 
and on the evening of the second day, came within 
two miles of the nearest Pequod fort. 

Here they halted for the night. Sentinels were 
posted. The wearied soldiers threw themselves 
on the ground, and were soon asleep. The heat of 
the summer night was tempered by the cool breezes 
from the sea. The full moon shone softly down on 
bush and rocks and shimmering water, while these 
soldiers slumbered in the very jaws of death. 
Before daybreak Captain Mason awoke his men 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 147 

and, offering up prayer for help, the little band 
hurried on to the attack. 

The fort stood on the brow of a hill. It was a 
high stockade fence, enclosing about seventy wig- 
wams covered with thatch and matting. 

Within, the warriors were sleeping. Almost all 
night they had feasted. “ These English are 
squaws ! they cried, “We are the Pequods, and 
kill English like mosquitoes. Then they shrieked 
and groaned and imitated the wretched colonists 
whom they had tortured. And now, after their 
revels, they were sleeping like conquerors. 

A dog ran howling into a wigwam, and ‘ ‘ Owanvx ! 
Owanvx ! ” “The English ! The English ! rang out 
on the air. They sprang from their couches only 
to meet the English at their doorways. 

Each captain, with his men, had come in at an 
opening, and surrounded the wigwams of the 
stockade to prevent escape. 

There was a fierce hand-to-hand struggle, and 
then the Pequods fled back to their tents. 

“Burn them ! shouted Mason. He seized a 
brand from a fire, and set the light mats in a blaze ; 
Underhill laid a train of powder, and the winds 
from the northeast lent aid to the awful destruc- 
tion. 

Those of the unhappy victims who did not per- 


148 


THE STORY OP THE INDIANS 


ish in the flames, fell on the swords of the English. 
Powwows, warriors, women, children — all went 
down together, and for a few short moments the 
screams and groans of the dying mingled with the 
boom of the muskets, the crackling of the leaping 
flames and the loud commands of the captains. 

Then all was still. The horrible work was over. 
Six hundred Pequods lay dead on the field. 

Two of the English were killed and several 
wounded. 

There was no time to linger over the ghastly 
scene. At any moment recruits might come ; for 
some Indians had escaped to spread the news. 

The wounded and dead were being carried rap- 
idly toward the harbor below, when three hundred 
Pequods from the other fort appeared. They at- 
tacked the troops and fought as best they could. 
But Indians seldom fight in open battle, and the 
noise of the guns confused them. They ran wildly 
about, shooting at random ; they aimed high and 
watched the effect of each arrow before they shot 
another, and were soon put to flight. Then they 
gathered on a hill which overlooked the still burn- 
ing stockade, and, when they saw the charred and 
blackened corpses, they tore their hair, stamped on 
the ground, and, with the fury of demons, rushed 
down again on the English ; but again they were 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


149 


put to flight. The troops returned to their wait- 
ing ships, and sailed away to their homes. 

Meanwhile, the routed band of Pequods hurried 
to the western fort to tell Sassacus of the destruc- 
tion of his people. 

The remnant of the doomed nation held a long 
and fierce debate whether they would attack the 
Narragansetts, or fall upon the English, or flee to 
some distant tribes for protection. 

In grief and shame they decided to flee. So 
they burned the fort with all the supplies they 
could not carry, and started on their journey. 

After a night of weary march, the little band 
stood at sunrise on a high hill to view, for the last 
time, their lost hunting-grounds. 

Below them stretched the famous valley where 
two winding streams united to form the Thames, 
one flowing with placid surface from between high 
cliffs, the other foaming and fretting in its rocky 
bed, as it hurried to join the river which empties 
into the sea. 

Here and there ran tiny streams where beaver 
villages perched like beehives in the distance. 

Forests of oak and walnut lay scattered like 
islands among the meadows where stalked the deer 
and the antelope. 

Murmurs of cataracts mingled with the songs of 


150 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


the birds, and breezes from the sea caught the fra- 
grance of the blossoms in the valley, and wafted 
their incense upward to greet the rosy dawn. 

Ah, it was sweet, this native land ! Stern and 
sorrowful, the group of exiles lingered a moment 
on the hill, and then disappeared behind the clilFs. 
They wandered on, hiding by day in the swamps, 
and stealing like hunted beasts through the forest 
by night. 

Some perished on the way, some were taken 
captive and sold as slaves, and some were adopted 
into neighboring tribes. 

Sassacus and five of his companions were slain 
by the Mohawks, and their scalps were sent to the 
English at Hartford. 

The English had destroyed the Pequods forever. 

At the time, there seemed nothing else to do to 
save the lives of the settlers. But if the dear old 
pastor, who now lay in the little Puritan church- 
yard of Leyden, had known of this war with the 
Pequods, he would have said again : “ Would that 
you had converted some before you killed any.’^ 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


151 


CHAPTER XXIII. 

MIANTONOMO. 

The hunting-grounds, which the Pequods had 
deserted, skirted on Long Island Sound, and 
stretched toward the north in lovely hills and 
deep forests where game was very abundant. 

The Xarragansetts and the Mohegans fell into 
violent disputes over the possession of these lands ; 
and the English might have easily set them at 
each other’s throats, and thus been rid of both. 

But instead of urging them to war, the English 
persuaded them to make a treaty of peace ; and 
both nations pledged not to make war on each 
other without the consent of the colonies. 

In spite of their promises, there could be no 
peace. 

The scouts of the Xarragansetts prowled among 
the rocks and ravines around the Thames, and 
awaited, with impatience, the hour when they 
might fall upon their rivals. 

It was said that Miantonomo, the young chief 
of the Xarragansetts, hired an assassin to slay Un- 
cas of the Mohegans. 


152 THE STORY OE THE INDIANS 

Miantonomo denied this, and said that Uncas 
had cut himself with a flint and had made up 
the story. 

The quarrels waxed hotter and hotter, until one 
day in September, 1643, when he thought his foes 
busy in the corn-fields, Miantonomo planned a 
brilliant surprise. 

But Uncas was a wary chieftain. His scouts 
were posted day and night on the top of Fort Hill, 
which overlooked his enemies, and canoes lay 
ready in the ravine below. 

When the foes came in sight, a sentinel sprang 
from his hiding-place and glided swiftly down the 
Thames with the news. 

In a few moments three or four hundred Mohe- 
gans were on the march. 

They halted when they heard that the Narragan- 
setts had crossed the fords of the Yantic, and soon 
saw them coming down the hillside toward the 
plain. Both parties drew up in battle array. Mi- 
antonomo wore a helmet and corslet, and many of 
his warriors carried muskets, and were dressed in 
English fashion. 

Uncas threw up his hands and advanced toward 
the enemy. Miantonomo did the same. 

“ Let us fight it out together in single combat,” 
said Uncas. “ If you kill me, my men and all my 


OV NEW ENGLAND. 153 

lands shall be yours. If I kill you, your men and 
all your lands shall be mine.” 

But Miantonomo had great faith in his coat of 
mail, and in the new muskets his warriors carried ; 
so he said, ‘‘ My men have come to fight, and they 
shall fight.” 

Then Uncas dropped to the ground as a signal, 
and a shower of arrows fell. Swift as the wind 
the bowmen followed the arrows, and routed the 
foe with their tomahawks. Over the river at the 
shallows they fled through tangled forests and 
rushing torrents. 

Meanwhile, Miantonomo was shackled by his 
awkward armor. He attempted to flee, and was 
caught by two of his own men, who dragged him 
to Uncas and basely surrendered him. 

This chief was so enraged at their perfidy, that 
he struck both dead at his feet. Then his whoops 
of victory recalled his men from their pursuit. 
The proud captive sat down on the ground without 
a word or glance at his victor. 

“ If you had taken me,” said Uncas, ‘T should 
have begged you for my life.” 

But the chief of the Narragansetts made no 
reply. 

He was taken to Hartford as a prisoner of Uncas, 
and left there to be disposed of as the English saw fit. 


154 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


Now, there had long been rumors that this Mi- 
antonomo was plotting against the English. 

‘ The Mohawks had said he visited their villages 
on the Hudson with a hundred of his bravest war- 
riors, to urge them to go on the warpath against 
the English. 

There was the most convincing proof that he 
had been at the head of a plan to massacre all the 
Palefaces. 

But this was not the charge upon which Mian- 
tonomo had his trial. 

He was tried for attempts on the life of Uncas, 
and a sudden attack on the Mohegans, contrary to 
a pledge given in the presence of the English. 

By the laws of Indian warfare, he was already 
condemned to death. 

It was decided by the judges that the life of Un- 
cas would be unsafe if the captive were set free. 

He was delivered to Uncas, to be put to death 
without torture. 

Now, there was reason to make this condition, 
that the death should be without torture. 

The Mohegans were noted for cruelty to cap- 
tives. In the expedition against the Pequods, 
Uncas and his warriors had been given one pris- 
oner to be put to death, and they tortured, roasted, 
and ate him I 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


155 


When he had received his victim, Uncas led him 
forth, and with several warriors and two English 
guards, took him to the very spot where he had 
been made prisoner, near the present city of N^or- 
wich. 

Here the procession halted ; a brother of Uncas 
stepped behind Miantonomo and struck him on the 
head with a hatchet. 

He was buried where he fell, and the place to 
this very day is called Sachem Plain. There lay 
the proud chieftain between two solitary white oak- 
trees. In the distance were rocky heights of 
stunted hemlocks, and the falling waters of the 
Yantic sang a never-ceasing dirge. 

Every September, for many years, the Yarragan- 
setts came to the grave to lament the loss of their 
sachem ; and none came without bringing a stone, 
so that in time a high monument was reared , which 
might be seen for many miles away. 


156 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


CHAPTER XXIY. 

THE DUTCH AND THE FRENCH. 

Now, while the English were stretching out their 
boundary lines along the bays of Xew England, the 
Dutch, from Holland, were settling along the Hud- 
son river to the west of them. 

Strange to say, these two peoples did not agree 
so well in America, where there was plenty of 
room, as they had done in the crowded, little town 
of Leyden. 

The Dutch’ claimed all the land on both sides of 
the Hudson river, because Henry Hudson had dis- 
covered that river while on a voyage for the East 
India Company. 

The great navigator told the merchants that he 
had never seen anything half so beautiful as this 
river in America, and said that a fine fur trade 
might be carried on there. 

Then Dutch ships sailed up the Hudson with 
powder, shot, hatchets and beads, to trade for the 
furs of the Indians. One blockhouse was built where 
Albany now stands, and called Fort Orange, and 
another was built on Manhattan Island, and called 
Xew Amsterdam. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


157 


Soon many ships brought thrifty burghers and 
their wives ; and, in time, New Amsterdam grew 
into a quaint little city of wooden houses, with high 
gable ends of red and black tiles, after the fashion 
of houses in Holland. 

The island of Manhattan, where this little city 
stood, was guarded on the east by a whirlpool, 
which even the Indians feared to pass ; and on the 
west stood the bristling guns of a fort. 

To the north of the island, on both sides of the 
Hudson, the country was a paradise for hunters 
and trappers, abounding in deer, elk, beaver, and 
wild fowl. 

To the west was Staten Island, and between the 
two islands lay the placid bay, where ships sailed 
in and out in busy quest of trade. 

To the south of Manhattan, across an arm of 
the sea, lay Long Island. The Dutch settled the 
west end of this island, and were soon snapping 
their fingers at the English from Connecticut, who 
had settled the east end of it. 

The soil of the whole region claimed by the 
Dutch was fine. There were forests of red and 
white oak, walnuts, chestnuts and hazel. Violets 
and roses filled the air with perfume, and herbs 
and roots abounded, which, the Indians said, would 
cure every known disease. 


158 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


Sand bars and shoals lured whales and seals dur- 
ing winter, and oysters and periwinkles abounded 
in all the coves of the coast. 

At first the Dutch had trouble with the Indians, 
and many a stout burgher was scalped, but they 
soon bought up the lands, and built forts to defend 
them, and in time the Indians gave pledges of 
peace. 

They explored all the country between Cape 
Henlopen and Cape Cod, and called it New Neth- 
erlands. Then they planted a trading station on 
the Connecticut river. So there these Dutch were, 
like a thorn in the side of the English. But their 
settlement on the Connecticut did not prosper. 
The Puritans made shrewder bargains than anyone 
would have believed such pious people could make. 

They had the east end of Long Island and some 
of the best points along the Connecticut river, with 
the strong fort of Say brook at its mouth. 

At length, after many quarrels, a boundary line 
was agreed upon between the two nations, which 
divided Long Island, and passed north between 
Connecticut and New York. 

How this ever happened without the use of musk- 
ets, no one seems to know. 

Washington Irving declares that the Dutch did 
not like the smell of onions.^ So the Yankees planted 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


159 


their rows of onions a little farther west every year, 
and the Dutchmen retired with tears in their eyes ! 

But even after the division of the land, there was 
rivalry in the fur trade with the Indians. 

The jolly Dutchmen dandled the pappooses and 
made themselves so popular, that business was al- 
ways brisk. 

But the Dutch were not the only troublesome 
neighbors of the English. There stood the French, 
on the north, to take away trade. 

Montreal and Quebec on the St. Lawrence river, 
and Port Royal in Nova Scotia, were flourishing 
posts for fisheries and furs. 

At certain seasons of the year, the French sent 
their vessels along the coast of Maine to trade with 
the Tarratines, who had always been hostile to the 
English. Hundreds of Indian trappers carried 
their packs of furs over rivers and through fens, to 
the waiting French ships. They pitched their bark 
tents along the beautiful harbors of Maine ; and, 
after the dances, songs and feasts were over, they re- 
turned home, laden with trinkets, hatchets and guns. 

The English in the scattered settlements along 
the coasts of New Hampshire and Maine, were in 
constant fear of an attack from the French and 
their Indian allies, and soon placed themselves 
under the protection of Massachusetts. 


160 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


But greater than the dangers from the Dutch or 
the French, was the danger from their own Indian 
allies. 

They were always at war with one another, and 
so it was impossible to keep peace with them all. 
The Pequods were no more, but the Narragansetts, 
the Mohegans, and all the New England tribes, 
seemed ready at any time to break faith with the 
white men. 

An Indian creeping through the outskirts of the 
forest at daybreak might be the signal for the 
coming of a whole band on the warpath ; a gift 
passed from one chief to another was, perhaps, a 
compact for war. 

And so there was great need for the feeble Eng- 
lish settlements to form the United Colonies of 
New England, as a defense against their common 
foes. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


161 


CHAPTER XXY. 

THE UNITED COLONIES OF NEW ENGLAND. 

In 1643, the colonies of Massachusetts, Ply- 
mouth, Connecticut and Xew Haven, joined to- 
gether in a confederation called the United Colonies 
of Xew England. A General Assembly was formed 
of two delegates from each colony, which was to 
make laws for the public welfare. 

Maine and Xew Hampshire were at that time a 
part of Massachusetts, and had a few straggling 
settlements along the coast. 

Rhode Island desired admission to the confeder- 
ation, but ever since the exile, Roger Williams, 
planted Providence, the country around Xarragan- 
sett Bay had been the home of people with hobbies, 
and so it was thought best by the sister colonies to 
put Rhode Island on probation, before taking her 
into the Union. 

Under the new union each colony had its gover- 
nor as before ; and when the delegates met at Bos- 
ton they elected a president. 

About fifty thousand English-speaking people 
now dwelt on the shores of the beautiful rivers 


162 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


and bays. They seemed contented and happy in 
their new homes, and said that a sup of New Eng- 
land’s air was better than a whole draught of old 
English ale. There was no time to grieve for the 
friends across the sea. Work began before sun- 
rise and ended when candles were snuffed out. 

The women cooked, tended hens, geese and 
calves, scoured the brass warming-pans and pew- 
ter dishes, spun yarns, and wove them into cloth, 
and pieced quilts. But the Indians called these 
white women “ lazie squaes,” when they saw them 
embroidering, instead of hoeing in the fields, as 
their own wives did. 

The children were never idle. The “chores” 
kept them busy most of the time, and when an 
idle moment came, there were the samplers for the 
girls to work in verses and letters of the alphabet ; 
there were traps for the boys to set, and flocks to 
watch from the prowling wolves. Many an excit- 
ing story was told of how ‘ ‘ the wolves sat on their 
tayles and grinned ” at them from the cover of the 
forest. 

The men were their own carpenters, coopers and 
blacksmiths, and were kept busy from morning 
till night. 

In early spring, the herrings were to be pickled 
and dried, and hung in strings in the barn loft, the 


OP NEW ENGLAND. 


163 


sheep were to be sheared, the corn to be planted, 
the gardens to be tended. 

In autumn, the salt grass was to be cut, the rye 
was to be threshed with the flail, the shell-fish to be 
g-athered, the cider to be cared for. 

In winter there were fences to make, nails to 
hammer, bullets to mould, and timber to cut on the 
decrease of the moon. 

These forefathers of ours had great faith in the 
moon. They would plant and reap, set hens and 
shear sheep, when the signs were right by the 
moon. 

They were in such constant fear of the Indians, 
that they kept close to the sea and soon became ship- 
builders and traders. 

Farmers built scows for transporting wood, and 
sloops for freighting it to market ; and crafts with 
one and two masts for fishing and whaling. 

The launch of a vessel, from the woods where H 
had been built, was a great event. 

It was loaded on wheels, and hauled by oxen to 
the landing-place, where the wheels were run out 
into the water till the vessel floated off. 

At the time of the union of the colonies, there 
had been five large vessels built, besides one hun- 
dred and ninety-two smaller sloops for the coasting 
trade ; and an export trade had been commenced. 


164 


THE STORY OP THE INDIANS 


Fish and furs, corn, cattle, butter, turpentine, 
pitch and tar, were sent in home-made vessels to 
the sister colonies of Virginia and Maryland. 

Home-made vessels carried to England, fish cured 
with salt made from the sea. They sailed to the 
Bermudas for potatoes, cotton and sugar, and then 
spread their sails to carry their cargoes into the 
ports of Spain, to bring back the luxuries of Europe. 

At first, there was a great lack of money for the 
home trade. Then Indian wampum was used. 
The beads could be easily divided up, and were 
convenient. 

About the time of the Pequod war, some of the 
colonies made the law that bullets should pass as 
money, and the casting of bullets kept everybody 
busy. 

Until this time there had been little travel be- 
tween the settlements. 

There was no road between Plymouth and Bos- 
ton. 

A Pilgrim took a boat to Weymouth, and then 
followed an Indian trail, in and out among the salt 
marshes, to Boston. 

One dignified alderman lost his way, and wan- 
dered three days and nights without food, and re- 
turned home at last with his clothes nearly torn 
off by the underbrush. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


165 


The trail was so difficult to trace, that, after a 
time, trees were cut down to make a bridle-path ; 
then a tax was laid on the colonies to improve the 
travel, and many good roads were built through 
the hills and over hollows, and bridges were thrown 
across streams, which, a few years before, had been 
forded on the shoulders of the Indians. 

At this time, almost every town had its church, 
fort and prison. 

Many of the houses in the larger towns were 
brick or stone ; but most of the people were con- 
tent with log cabins of one or two rooms. 

There was always a great fireplace at one end 
of the large room, where the mush kettle hung on 
a crane. When the men and boys brought in the 
back log for the fire, it was so heavy that the tim- 
bers and rafters fairly creaked with their footsteps. 
There were blocks of wood for children's seats at 
the corners of the fireplace, and a large settle, with 
a high back, kept off the cold air. 

Tin candlesticks hung on nails over the chimney, 
and also bundles of catnip, herbs and roots, sup- 
posed to be cures for almost any disease. 

The walls were adorned with raccoon and fox 
skins, lobster’s and bear’s claws. 

Bundles of red peppers, strings of dried apples, 
sausages, and flitches of bacon, festooned the rafters. 


166 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


The long clock hung in many homes, and the spin- 
ning-wheels stood in the corners. 

There were a few precious books from dear Old 
England, among which was always the family 
Bible, with its records of births, marriages and 
deaths. 

Of course in the best houses there was some 
show of rugs, and silver plate, and fine furniture. 

And to a visitor from the country, Boston seemed 
a splendid city, with its brick houses and pleasant 
gardens. The streets were paved with cobble- 
stones, and crowded with hackney coaches, sedan 
chairs, and four-horse shays, in which the gentry 
rode, with negro slaves for drivers. 

The gentry were dressed in embroidered coats, 
satin waistcoats, silk hose and wigs ; some, like 
Winthrop, wore stiff ruffs, and some wore broad, 
fiat collars. The ladies were gay in bright silks 
and gauze scarfs, and put black patches on their 
cheeks to improve their beauty. 

All this citified splendor made the farmer or 
fisherman from a little country settlement feel very 
timid and ill at ease, as he walked up the crowded 
street, which led down to the wharf of the capital 
city. But when he saw a fine coach followed close 
by flocks of sheep, and ox-carts filled with cord- 
wood or hay, he began to feel more at home ; and 



boston seemed a splendid city. 




OF NEW ENGLAND. 


167 


when, behind the mincing lady of fashion, he saw 
rosy-cheeked farmers^ wives in homespun, bring- 
ing baskets of butter and eggs, he stepped along 
as briskly as the next one ; and when at last 
this backwoodsman found himself comfortably 
seated in the Bunch of Grapes tavern, with many 
others just like himself, and heard the latest news 
from Old England, he felt, as he sipped his ale, 
that there was nowhere in the world a city like 
Boston, and no nation quite so full of promise as 
the United Colonies of America. 

Each town had its own selectmen to make laws, 
to exterminate foxes and crows, to protect oyster 
fishing, to look after yoking the hogs on the com- 
mon, to see that bridges were built and marshes 
drained. 

Then there was the constable, who was a very 
important personage, and carried a black staff, 
tipped with brass as a badge of his office. 

He was always busy. The drunkards were to 
be found out, fined and flogged, and marked with 
a large red D. Liars were to be put in the stocks, 
scolds to be ducked in the ponds. 

One man, who charged too much for making a 
pair of stocks, had the privilege of sitting an hour 
in them himself. It was death for a child to strike 
a parent, except in self-defense. 


168 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


There were laws against wearing the hair long, 
or dressing too gayly, or laughing too loudly. 

There were laws which made the l)achelors so 
miserable, that they soon took wives in self-defense ; 
there were laws for widows, and laws for maids ; 
and of course the more laws there were, the busier 
the constable and the tithing-man were kept to see 
that these laws were obeyed. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


169 


CHAPTER XXYI. 

CHURCH AND SCHOOL. 

In every village of Puritan Xew England, the 
minister was the most important personage. 

Very few were honored with the title of Mr. or 
Mrs.; but the minister and his wife were always 
called Mr. and Mrs. 

In church, the elders sat in great state just be- 
low the pulpit, facing the congregation, and the 
deacons sat a step lower, noting well any sign of 
laughing among the young folks. The men and 
women sat apart. The men who faced the minis- 
ter wore long jackets, with a belt at the waist, and 
loose trousers reaching only to the knee, where 
they were tied, and coarse, square-toed shoes, 
adorned with enormous buckles. Their hair was 
combed straight back, and tied with black ribbon. 

The women wore short gowns, stiff petticoats, 
and white aprons. The sleeves of the gowns were 
short, and long mittens came above the elbow. 
Their cloaks were short, with the hoods thrown 
back in meeting. 

The boys and girls sat in separate places, some- 
times on the gallery stairs, and sometimes on the 


170 


THE STORY OF TEE INDIANS 


steps leading up to the pulpit, and were under the 
charge of the tithing-man. 

Everybody had to sit very straight, and listen 
without a smile, or going once to sleep. The tith- 
ing-man carried a long rod, with a fox-tail on one 
end ; and if a man or a boy was so unlucky as to 
fall asleep, he rapped him over the head with the 
hard end, but when a girl or a woman nodded, he 
tickled her face with the soft, furry end. 

The Sabbath day began at six o’clock on Satur- 
day evening, when the people became sour and 
sad. All work was laid aside, and the old Bible 
was brought out, to prepare the family for the de- 
votions of the morrow. On Sabbath, each man ap- 
peared to have lost his best friend. The town 
records show fines for combing a wig on Sabbath, 
and humming a tune, and walking too fast. 

The rolling of wheels through the streets, was a 
great breach of respect to the Lord’s day; and 
Samuel Brown, of Norwich, was fined for riding 
in a chaise to meeting ; some one else was fined for 
running into church when it rained. 

Next to the meeting-house was the school. 
There were many highly-educated men in New 
England, who had brought libraries with them, 
and were determined that their children should 
have good educations. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


171 


In almost every town a school was established, 
which should be free for the rich and the poor 
alike. 

The little log school-house had a wide fireplace, 
and windows with oiled paper, instead of glass 
windows. 

And on the rude benches, hacked by many a 
jack-knife, sat the “hopes of the future” with 
shining, morning faces. They were clad in the 
linsey-woolsey, which their mothers had spun. 

The young men and young women were in the 
far end of the room, and the smallest children sat 
near the teacher, and studied aloud, to be sure 
they were learning their lessons aright. 

The birch rod was thought a great help in get- 
ting the lessons, and hung on the wall over the 
teacher’s seat. 

The primers were religious rhymes, and the 
readers were Bibles. 

It was not unusual for a little five-year-old to 
quote Scriptures, like the preacher himself, and as 
for catechism, if any child did wrong, it was from 
sheer wickedness, because he had learned every 
step of the way to be good ; so there was no excuse 
for the culprit, and he was punished accordingly. 

The teachers were paid in corn, or barley, or 
other produce from the farms. 


172 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


Each child was required to furnish, through his 
parents, a cord of wood, and if this were not 
brought, he was not allowed to sit near enough to 
the fire to keep warm. 

Because of the openings between the logs, the 
room was always very cold, except near the fire. 
So there sat the delinquent, off by himself, his little 
body covered with goose-flesh, and his toes stiff, 
under the frozen leather. 

This seems a very strict rule ; but wood was 
everywhere to be had for the getting, and idle- 
ness was despised by these people of New Eng- 
land. 

You will remember how the Puritans cut down 
the May-pole at Merrymount, and refused to cele- 
brate May-day, because it was a festival of the 
heathen. They also refused to call the days of 
the week as we do, because the names had been 
taken from the heathen gods. So they called Sun- 
day, First-day, Monday, Second-day, and so on. 

There were always more fast days than feast 
days. 

There were fasts, to ward off pests in the grain, 
and withering droughts, and killing frosts, and at- 
tacks from the Indians. 

But there were also thanksgiving days for the 
blessings received ; and sometimes the New World 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


173 


was compared to the Land of Goshen, to which 
they had escaped from bondage, like the Israelites 
of old. 

There was an abundance of maize, and all grains 
and vegetables flourished. 

Fruit-trees were much improved over the varie- 
ties they had brought with them to plant. 

Besides the thanksgiving days, there were other 
times when the Puritans were merry. 

There were fishing-parties, when the fish came 
up the rivers from the sea ; there were husking- 
bees, when the corn was ripe ; and log-rollings, 
when all the neighbors helped to build a new 
house ; there were spelling-schools, and quilting- 
bees, and strawberry and raspberry-pickings 
among the rocky glens and pastures. 

Dancing was forbidden, but no laws in the world 
could keep young feet from tripping nimbly in 
and out among the trees in the nutting season, 
when the joyous laugh resounded through the au- 
tumn forest. 

On training-day, there was a great muster of 
men from sixteen to sixty for drill. The arms 
were muskets, swords and pikes. The muskets had 
match-locks, or flint-locks, and a rest for taking 
aim. Pikes were ten feet long, and the tallest men 
were always chosen to carry these. There were 


174 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


twice as many musketeers as pikemen. There was 
no regular uniform. Some wore corslets of steel, 
and some thick wadded coats of cotton. Some wore 
beaver hats, and some felt hats, and some caps knit 
by their sisters or sweethearts. 

Training-day was a holiday for everybody, and 
generally came around once a month. There was 
a great baking, and an extra setting of traps for 
a feast. 

The women and children were proud of their 
soldiers with weapons of all sizes and shapes, and 
followed them along the line of march with baskets 
of gingerbread and bottles of harmless drinks. 

Sometimes prizes were offered for the best shot 
on these occasions. A dummy was set up, and 
whoever hit the spot most likely to kill, was 
awarded the medal ; but there was often much dis- 
pute as to where the fatal spot, in a dummy, might 
be ! 

“ Put right hands to fire-lock ! Put gun on left 
shoulder ! Hoo ! shouted the captain, as he ma- 
noeuvered his men on the green. 

Many a boy learned in this target practice, to 
speed straight his bullet. 

And you will find that in the years to come 
there was need of skill at arms. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


175 


CHAPTER XXYII. 

PRAYING TOWNS. 

An Indian erect with an arrow in his right hand, 
and the motto, “ Come over and help us,^^ that was 
the seal of the colony of Massachusetts. 

But until the confederation of the colonies, the 
English were busy hewing out their homes in the 
wilderness, and did little to civilize the Indians. 

Just about that time Thomas Mayhew purchased 
Martha’s Vineyard and Nantucket, where several 
tribes of Indians dwelt. 

His young son, Thomas, formed the plan of 
educating and converting the Indians. So he 
built houses, collected the natives about him, and 
commenced his missionary work. 

Hiacoomes was his first convert ; but it was 
with much tribulation that this warrior remained 
true to the faith. 

One chief jeered at him and called him “Eng- 
lishman,” which was enough to wound an Indian 
who had any pride at all. Another told him it 
was madness, for a brave with a wife, to break with 
the old religion. What would he do if his family 


176 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


fell sick, and the powwow of the village refused 
to help them ? Another told him it was infamous 
to barter thirty-seven gods for one. 

This last troubled Hiacoomes greatly, until the 
Rev. Mayhew convinced him that his one Grod was 
worth all the Indian gods put together. 

Several schools and churches were established 
on the islands, and in a few years over a thousand 
Indians professed to be Christians. 

When, at last, the devoted young missionary em- 
barked for England to seek aid in his work, his 
ship was lost at sea, and he was never seen again. 

Meanwhile, John Eliot, of Roxbury, had learned 
the Indian language, that he might preach to the 
heathen. 

But in all his labors with the Indians, Eliot was 
opposed by the powwows. These powwows, or 
medicine men, were fast losing their hold on the 
tribes of the Massachusetts, and used all their arts 
to prevent the spread of the new religion. 

So Eliot took his converts from the gibes of 
their companions, and laid out the town of Na- 
tick, on the Charles river near Boston, and soon 
there were four hundred Christians in Natick. 
They built a fort, a church, and their own 
houses. 

The women were taught to spin, weave, cook 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 177 

and keep house. The men learned to cultivate the 
orchards, and to sow the small grain. 

They followed the long furrows with endless de- 
light, and were very proud of their advanced 
methods, in spite of the jeering taunts from the un- 
converted that the white men were turning them 
into squaws. 

Other towns were built for the converts ; soon 
there w^ere fourteen praying towns in Massachusetts. 

Money was raised in England to buy the Indians 
clothing, books, and implements for work. 

In summer they gathered, out under the trees, 
to hear the good Eliot tell about the white man’s 
God. It was a pretty picture which they made in 
the shadow of the forest. 

The women and children sat in a circle on the 
ground, and the warriors stood up, with arms folded 
across their chests. 

Some wore the skins of beasts, and mantles of 
feathers, some bright, woolen blankets, and some 
were dressed like the English. 

First they sang a hymn in all sorts of tunes, and 
prayer was offered. Then the little Indians stood 
within the circle, and after much twisting of half 
naked little red bodies, and much digging of toes 
in the ground, and many shy glances at their 
proud mothers, they answered the questions of the 


178 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


catechism. No doubt the young rascals were only 
kept from pursuit of the squirrels, darting past them 
in the thickets, by their great awe of the white 
powwow. 

After the catechism, questions were allowed. 
“Was it not strange,” the warriors asked, “that 
the white man’s Grod could be in Massachusetts, and 
in Connecticut, and in England across the sea, all 
at one and the same time ? The great Manitou of 
the Indians could only be in one place at a time.” 
“God was so used,” they said, “to hearing the 
English pray, that He could well understand them ; 
but was it likely that He was acquainted with the 
Indian language ? ” 

To this question Mr. Eliot replied that God had 
made all things, and all men, not only English, 
but Indians ; and having made them both, he un- 
derstood them both. 

He held up a beautiful basket, and said that the 
person who made the basket knew the different 
twigs in it, though others might not. 

Sometimes the questions asked were very simple 
and foolish, and then the Indians themselves would 
call out, “That is a pappoose question!” which 
meant “ Now you talk like' a baby 1 ” The colon- 
ists felt great pride in the new converts. 

Governor Winthrop and others visited the pray- 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


179 


ing towns, and wrote to friends in England of the 
spread of the Gospel among the heathen. Mr. 
Eliot determined to give them the Bible in their 
own language. First he printed a short catechism, 
and then he printed two hundred New Testaments, 
in the Algonquin language. He hoped, by this 
means, to convert all the tribes in New England. 

But the greater part of the Indians held to the 
gods of their fathers. 

The Narragansetts listened patiently, once a 
month, to Roger Williams, because they loved him ; 
but few were converted to his faith. 

Massasoit remained always the friend of the 
white men ; but said the gods of the Wampanoags 
were good enough for him. 

This great chief was now very old. He had 
kept all his pledges with the English. 

He visited the governor at Plymouth every year. 
He also dressed himself in feathers, paints and 
wampum ; and, with an escort of splendid warriors, 
made a visit to Governor Winthrop in Boston. 

Many interesting stories are told of Massasoit. 
Once, when Governor Winslow had been to Con- 
necticut, he visited Massasoit on his way home ; 
and, when he was ready to set out on his journey 
again, the chief offered to be his guide through 
the forest. 


180 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


Then he sent a swift courier in advance, who an- 
nounced in Plymouth that the Grovernor was dead. 
The people mourned bitterly over the loss of the 
noble man. 

But the next day, Massasoit brought Winslow 
into town, alive and well ; and the sorrow was 
changed to rejoicing. 

He then explained, that this was one of the cus- 
toms of his tribe, in order to cause greater joy over 
the return of an absent friend. 

One of the last acts of the noble Massasoit was, 
to bring his two oldest sons to Plymouth, that they 
might renew the pledges which he himself had 
made to the white men. 

And then, in 1661, the honored old chieftain 
died, and was laid away to rest in the burial-ground 
of his royal race. He was true to his gods to the 
last. 

A little corn was placed in the grave, to ^sustain 
him on the long journey to the Happy Hunting 
Grounds. His musket, the much-prized red coat, 
and other presents from the white men, were laid 
by his side. 

But it was the bow and arrow and tomahawk 
that he wanted close by his hand ; for with these 
he would meet the warriors who had gone on be- 
fore. 


OF NEW ENGLAND, 


181 


CHAPTER XXYIII. 

KING ALEXANDER. 

Each town established in Xew England was 
called a new candlestick, and, in 1661, when Mas- 
sasoit died, there were about ninety of these Puri- 
tan candlesticks in the Land of the Bays. 

As you have seen, most of the lands occupied 
by the English, were not claimed by the Indians, 
because the tribes which dwelt on them had been 
destroyed by the plague. 

Then, too, many tracts had been bought. 

They had been paid for with hatchets, blankets, 
and perishable articles ; and, when these things 
were gone, the Indians began to think they had 
been cheated out of their lands. 

Even before the death of Massasoit, his two 
sons, Wamsetta and Pometacom, chided the war- 
riors who sold their land. “You are selling your 
birthright for a mess of pottage,” they said, “and 
we shall soon not have ground enough to spread 
our blankets on.” 

They claimed that the Indians did not under- 
stand the deeds for lands for which they had 


182 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


signed the rude outlines of a bow and arrow, or 
hatchet, or turtle, or any of the various totems 
which represented their names. But the white 
men said that the Indians were shrewd and cun- 
ning in their trades. They always got the best 
price they could for their furs, and sold their lands 
so cheaply because they prized the trinkets more 
highly than they did the lands. 

The colonies, however, made strict laws against 
buying lands without permission of the courts, 
where the purchase might be examined. 

Anyone buying land, without permission, was 
fined five pounds sterling for each acre that he 
bought. Fences were ordered to be put up to 
keep cattle from the Indians’ corn, and many laws 
were made to protect the Indians. 

Josiah Plastowe, “for stealing four baskets of 
corn from an Indian,” was ordered “ to give him 
eight baskets of corn and pay to the court a fine 
of five pounds, and hereafter to be called by the 
name of Josiah and not Mr., as formerly he used 
to be.” 

The Puritans believed that their coming had 
been a benefit to the savages. 

Did they not have horses and oxen to lessen 
their labor, and plows to produce more corn? 

Did they not have a market for their furs ? 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


183 


Had they not learned to store up corn against a 
famine, and build warm cabins against winter 
weather ? 

Were there not schools and churches and the 
catechism ? 

But when Wamsetta became chief of the Wam- 
panoags in the place of his father, Massasoit, he 
pondered well the wampum belts of his people. 
They told of boundless forests and sea-coast. 

He looked about him and saw his tribes crowded 
into two small peninsulas of Mount Hope and 
Tiverton. 

The game was frightened from the forest, and 
the fish were taken from the rivers. 

Every day he gazed wistfully at the lands that 
were gone. There lay the orchards, and stretches 
of waving grain, the pastures dotted with herds of 
browsing cattle, and the gardens gay in the min- 
gled blossoms of the old world and the new. 

How he despised the placid scene ! How he 
longed to chase, once more, the bounding deer 
through sunny glades, and hunt the bear in the 
mazes of a tangled forest ! 

But the new king gave no sign of his anguish. 

He followed the footsteps of his father to the 
lodges of the Palefaces. He went to Plymouth 
and renewed the pledges of Massasoit. 


184 


THE STORY OR THE INDIANS 


Then he went to buy powder, and was given 
several pounds as a present. 

At length he and his brother went in state to 
Plymouth to request English names, and they 
were called Alexander and Philip by the magis- 
trates. 

And so these two Indian bravejs heard with won- 
der of Philip and Alexander of Greece, who had 
conquered the world in the olden time. 

Who can tell if that very story may not have 
aroused their slumbering ambition ? 

At any rate, very soon after this event, news 
came that Alexander had visited his old enemies, 
the Narragansetts, and was plotting to massacre 
the English. 

He was summoned to court to answer the 
charges, and as he did not appear, Major Josiah 
Winslow was sent to serve a summons. 

The major and his musketeers found the chief 
reposing with his warriors in a hunting lodge, 
after a long chase in the forest. 

Their arms were stacked at the doorway. 

While the soldiers seized the arms. Major Win- 
slow entered the lodge and served the writ. 

The proud chief refused to go ; and when Win- 
slow pointed a pistol at him, Alexander became 
insane with rage. He sprang for his weapons, 



THE PROUD CHIEF REFUSED TO GO 






OP NEW ENGLAND. 


186 


but all the arms were under guard. Resistance 
was useless. 

His warriors, fearing for his life, begged him to 
submit, and at length he bowed his head and set 
forth under an escort. Eighty warriors and Wee- 
tamoe, his wife, followed him in mournful silence 
as he set out for Plymouth. 

The excitement of his arrest threw Alexander 
into a violent fever. 

He was too ill to proceed farther than Huxbury, 
and was allowed to return home. He grew so ill, 
that his warriors made a litter from the boughs, 
and carried him through the forests to the Taun- 
ton which flowed past his lodge in Pocasset. 

But the silent company had not paddled far 
down the stream, before it was plain that their 
young chief was dying. 

With bursting hearts, his devoted men lifted the 
cold form from the canoe and laid it on a mossy 
bank. 

And there in the shadows of the forest he loved 
so well, the proud spirit of Alexander broke like a 
reed in the winter’s blast. 

His faithful wife bent in anguish over the life- 
less clay. 

With his head pillowed on her breast, Alexander 
had gone in haste to join his father, Massasoit, in 


186 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


the Happy Hunting Grrounds, where a Paleface 
might never safely enter. 

And Weetamoe, now the squaw-sachem or queen 
of Pocasset, returned to her lodge breathing ven- 
geance on the English, who had brought this shame 
and sorrow to her wigwam. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


187 


CHAPTER XXIX. 

KING PHILIP. 

After the death of Ale;xander, Philip became 
king of the Wampanoags. 

His chief seat was in Bristol, where the little 
peninsula gathers itself up into a high hill, called 
Mount Hope, which overlooks the waters and 
islands of Xarragansett Bay. 

Here, where the sea-breeze gently fanned his 
brow in summer, and the warm gulf stream tem- 
pered the frosts in winter, King Philip dwelt with 
his wife and child. 

If he felt resentment toward the English for the 
death of his brother, he concealed it from his best 
friends. 

He went to Plymouth to renew the pledges of 
friendship which Alexander had given, and for five 
years there was peace. 

The white-winged ships brought new settlers 
every year, until there were more than twice as 
many white men as red men in Xew England. 

The Indians longed more and more for the cun- 
ning inventions, which the English gave in exchange 
for their lands. Tract after tract was signed away ; 


188 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


many more candlesticks were set along the fron- 
tiers, and the Puritans prospered greatly. 

Then charges were brought against Philip. It 
was said that he was willing to join the French or 
the Dutch against the English, to recover the lands 
which his people had sold. 

In April, 1671, he was summoned to court at 
Taunton, to answer these charges. 

He took a band of warriors with him, painted 
and decorated with all the trappings of barbaric 
splendor, and armed to the teeth. 

He demanded one-half of the meeting-house for 
himself and his followers. The stern Pilgrims 
from Plymouth sat on the other side of the house, 
and they also were armed. Between the two sat 
commissioners from Massachusetts, who were to 
act as judges. 

King Philip stood up with lofty composure, and 
spoke in his own defense. 

He denied all the charges. He said he was 
proud of the alliance made by his noble father. 

When the Wampanoags had fallen before the 
plague, like grain before the sickle, the Karragan- 
setts had not dared to attack them, because the 
English were their friends. 

He pictured the weakness of his people, if the 
English should desert them. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


189 


He offered to surrender his arms, and defended 
himself so well that pledges of friendship were 
renewed, and he was allowed to go his way. 

Three years passed, and rumors came again to 
Plymouth that the Indians were sharpening their 
hatchets and mending their guns for the warpath. 

Perhaps Philip had listened to the cries for ven- 
geance from the widowed Weetamoe, who dwelt 
across the bay at Pocasset, and was the beloved 
sister of Philip’s wife. 

Perhaps he was urged to war by the young- 
warriors, who had learned the use of the gun, and 
longed for a trial of skill with the white men’s 
weapons. 

However this may have been, charges of treach- 
ery were again brought against Philip. 

When he was summoned to court, he confessed 
he had broken his pledges, but professed repent- 
ance, and surrendered the arms of some of his 
people. 

This aroused the wrath of his warriors, who had 
paid for their arms with valuable lands. 

So they held a great council fire, and Philip 
was taunted with his shame. The oldest chief 
pictured the glory of the past. The youngest 
warrior painted the future, led Philip’s only 
child, a beautiful ten-year-old boy, into the circle. 


190 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


and foretold his degradation as the white man’s 
slave. 

This last was more than the proud spirit of the 
sachem could bear. He decided on war, and began 
to collect muskets from the French and the Hutch. 

When Philip was again summoned to Plymouth, 
he went instead to Boston. He was very haughty 
now. He said that if King Charles, of England, 
would come and sit on his mat, he would treat 
with him ; but he did not owe obedience to the 
governor of Plymouth. 

Now, there was a young Indian named Sausa- 
mon, who had been educated in the college at 
Cambridge, and had taught school in the praying 
town of Natick. 

But for some reason, Sausamon had gone back 
to his people. He was intelligent and pleasing in 
his manners, and Philip made him his private sec- 
retary, and learned to love him and to trust him. 
He told Sausamon all about his plans to unite the 
Indian tribes, and drive the English back over the 
morning waters to the land from which they had 
come. 

After a time, Sausamon repented his desertion 
of the English. He came back to Natick, pro- 
fessed belief in the Christian religion, was bap- 
tized and became a preacher. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


191 


Then he revealed the plots against the settle- 
ments of New England, and very soon after was 
murdered and thrown into the river throu2:h a hole 
cut in the ice. 

An Indian testified that he had seen three of 
Philip’s men kill him, and had fled in fear of his 
own life. 

The three Indians were tried and convicted by 
a jury of Indians and white men. 

One of the Indians afterwards confessed, that he 
had stood near, while the other two committed the 
crime. All three were put to death. 

The Puritans were now greatly excited over 
the conflict that was sure to come. 

There they were, shut in between the cruel sea 
and the still more cruel foes ; they fancied they 
heard warnings of dread events about to happen. 
To their heated fancies, the whistling wind was 
the sound of bullets whizzing through the air ; the 
crash of a falling tree was the roar of cannon ; 
rocks rolling down the mountain side was the dis- 
charge of muskets. 

They said the wolves howled more dismally 
than ever through the trackless forests that skirted 
the settlements ; and they began to think that a 
punishment was sent upon them for their sins. 
Some dressed too gayly in ribbons, others drank 


192 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


too much ale ; and yet others thought perhaps they 
were to suffer for their pride in long, curling locks ; 
and some even declared that a judgment was 
upon them for allowing the Quakers to dwell in 
their midst. 

There was fasting and praying and rubbing up 
of rusty firearms, through all the colonies of New 
England. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


193 


CHAPTER XXX. 

KING PHILIPPS WAR. 

Philip of the Wampanoags sent swift messen- 
gers to summon his allies to a council of war. 

Some came from the country of the Xipmunks 
in central Massachusetts, others from the tribes 
which dwelt about the great Niagara Falls, others 
from the far provinces of Maine. 

They glided like swift shadows through the 
trackless forests, or floated past the chain of bays 
on the east, rounded Cape Cod, and steered their 
barks into Narragansett Bay, where the waters 
were red with the glare of the signal fires, on the 
summit of Mount Hope. 

And when all had at last assembled, they were a 
strange and motley group. 

The warriors of each tribe wore their own pecu- 
liar dress, and their faces were marked in diflerent 
symbols, so that each was known from the others. 

Some were half naked, others clothed in fine 
doeskin embroidered with wampum and fringed 
with moose hair. 

Weetamoe, queen of Poc^sset, the widow of Al- 


194 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


exander, was there in garments of moose skin, 
finely dressed ; a mantle of blue cloth was tied at 
the shoulders and waist, with girdles of white and 
blue wampum ; a tablet of copper wrought with 
jewels, shone on her ample breast ; and with her 
were three hundred warriors, fiercer than all the 
others, in their war-paints. 

Those who dwelt far from the white men, had 
their own weapons, the war clubs of tough, white 
oak, the long bow with arrows tipped with jasper, 
the hatchets of stone, and the spear of hardened 
wood. 

Those who came from near the English settle- 
ments, \Yere armed with sharp, steel hatchets. 
Many had muskets, at which the less fortunate 
braves gazed with envious eyes. 

When night had fallen, Philip took his place 
upon a stone near the council fire, and row behind 
row, in one vast circle, his warriors gathered around 
him. His face was painted in red and black. 
Upon his head he wore a band of wampum in token 
of his kingly office ; a broad belt of wampum fell 
from his shoulders to his waist ; his mantle was of 
feathers, and upon his breast was painted an eagle 
with outstretched wings. 

A feast was served on the high, white cliff which 
overlooks the lovely bay of Narragansett ; and meats. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


195 


which had long filled the air with savory odors 
during the process of cooking, were passed around 
in baskets by boys. 

But, according to ancient custom, Philip, the 
chief, ate nothing. He set apart, and pondered how 
he might best move the hearts of his people. His 
fiery eyes glowed like those of a tiger, though his 
manner was subdued ; and when the feast was 
over, he rose to his feet to tell his warriors why he 
had called them together. His voice swelled to 
majestic tones, when he recalled the ancient splen- 
dor of his race. 

He pictured their vast domains, the deep forests, 
the sunny banks along the winding rivers, the 
smiling bays skirting all the morning waters. 
Then, in hesitating accents, he bewailed the disas- 
ters which had befallen his people — the plague, 
the coming of the white men, the scarcity of game, 
the insults of the English traders. 

He said the Indians had only sold the right to 
settle on the lands ; they had not sold the lands ; 
yet their forests were cut down, and they, them- 
selves, would soon be driven out like dogs from the 
seats of their fathers. 

The white men had come cold and hungry to 
the Land of the Bays. They were warmed and 
fed. They came with no place where their feet 


196 


THE STORY OE THE INDIANS 


might rest, save on a broken ship. The great 
Massasoit gave them shelter and broad lands ; and 
now, the white beggars had become princes. They 
said to the red men, “Come hither,” and they 
came. “ Go yonder,” and they obeyed like slaves. 

The warriors were shutting themselves up in 
praying towns, where they did the work of squaws. 
They whipped their boys into craven cowards. 

A few more years, and there would be no more 
warriors ; there would only be slaves. 

He recalled the destruction of the Pequods, the 
shameful death of Alexander, the betrayal of 
Miantonomo, the hanging of his own devoted fol- 
lowers, who were innocent of the death of Sausa- 
mon. He said that the great Spirit had painted 
one people red and the other white, that He might 
know them apart. Then He had stretched the 
wide salt water between them to keep them apart 
forever. 

But the white men had disobeyed the great 
Spirit. They had come across the salt sea, and 
brought plague and ruin with them. Then Phil- 
ip’s voice grew loud and commanding, as he sum- 
moned his men to destroy the white tyrants, and 
win back the old hunting-grounds. As for him- 
self, he would pursue the warpath as long as any 
man was left to fight. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


197 


When the king sat down there was loud ap- 
plause. 

But some grizzly old warriors, scarred by many 
war clubs, urged delay. They said it would take 
many moons to unite all the tribes on the warpath 
to the English. The praying towns must be won 
over. The Mohawks and the Narragansetts must 
be bribed to joined the league. More guns must 
be bought from the Dutch and the French. 

In the end, this wise counsel prevailed, and it was 
decided to delay the attack on the settlements un- 
til harvest. 

But all the vast assembly declared for war ; and 
then the fires were fed with pine-knots for the 
dance. 

They whirled around in a fury which waxed 
wilder every moment, until a medicine man ut- 
tered a loud, shrill cry. 

Then all was silent. Every warrior stood in his 
place like a bronze statue. 

Slowly a band of powwows moved toward a forest 
among the neighboring hills. The warriors fol- 
lowed with noiseless tread. 

And in a solitary grove the priests built a fire, 
calling on the great Spirit of the warpath. One 
by one the warriors walked to the fire, and 
threw their most valued treasures into the sacred 


198 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


flames — a scalp lock, an otter skin, a wampum 
belt, a carved bow with arrows of jasper, a dress 
of rare feathers, a string of wampum, each threw 
in an otfering to appease the wrath of the god of 
war. 

And so the last step was taken. No more an- 
swer to the summons of white men ! War, bloody 
war, was before all who dwelt in the Land of the 
Bays. 

From this time forth. Mount Hope was the dread 
spot of all New England. There were sounds of 
drums and shots in the night, canoes were dimly 
outlined in the moonlight, as they glided past the 
coasts ; and swift and stealthy messengers sped to 
and from the lodge of King Philip. 

The court wrote Philip, urging him to dismiss 
his strange visitors, but he gave no reply. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


199 


CHAPTER XXXI. 

KING Philip’s war — {Continued), 

In spite of their agreement at the council fire at 
Mount Hope, some bands of Indians began to 
prowl about the English settlements. 

They broke into houses, shot down cattle, and 
seemed determined to provoke the white men into 
shedding the first blood. At last an Indian, who 
had killed some cattle, was wounded at Swanzey. 

This was the signal for war. It is said that 
Philip wept when he heard of it. He was not yet 
ready for war, and saw what the end must be. 

Swanzey was a town of about forty families, and 
the nearest to Mount Hope. On the twenty-fourth 
of June, 1675, as the people were coming from 
meeting, an Englishman was killed, and on the 
following day several were shot by the Indians. 

Troops rallied from the Massachusetts and Con- 
necticut towns. The faithful Mohegans hurried to 
aid their white brothers, and the combined forces 
marched to Mount Hope. 

Philip fled across the bay to Pocasset, which was 
a vast marsh, overgrown with hemlocks, and 


200 


THE STORY OE THE INDIANS 


choked by brambles and the mouldering trunks 
of fallen trees. 

The English did not dare to follow him through 
the deep, black mire. 

So they built a fort, and kept up a siege for two 
weeks, hoping to starve him out of his hiding- 
place. 

But Philip passed, at length, on a raft, over an 
arm of the sea, and fled to the west. He was pur- 
sued by the troops, and lost thirty of his brave fol- 
lowers. 

With the fury of despair, the chieftain rallied 
the Indians of Massachusetts around him, and be- 
gan to assault the English towns. 

He moved swiftly, now here, now there, and 
was said to be attended by an old witch, who as- 
sisted him by her black charms. 

An attack was made at Brookfield, and the peo- 
ple fled to the blockhouse. 

The Indians set fire to all the houses of the town, 
and then began a siege on the blockhouse. 

They tried in many ways to set it afire. They 
shot arrows, tipped with burning rags, to the roof. 

Then they built a very long scaffold, with bar- 
rels for wheels, loaded it with hay, and pushed it, 
flaming, toward the building. 

But a rain poured down, which seemed a mir- 



u 





IN AN INSTANT HUNDItEDS OF BULLETS AND AllKOWS CAME WHIZZING FKOM THE THICKETS. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


201 


acle to the pallid men, women and children, who 
were fighting for their lives within the fort. 

The flames were quenched ; the bow-strings were 
stretched so that the arrows missed their marks ; 
and, before affairs were in fighting shape again, a 
a troop of cavalry, in command of Major Simon 
Willard, hurried to the rescue of Brookfield, and 
drove the Indians back, with a heavy loss. 

At Deerfield and at Hadley, the houses were pil- 
laged and burned. Men, women and children 
were put to death, and scalped in the most horri- 
ble manner. 

A company of ninety soldiers, with eighteen wa- 
gons, went to Deerfield to get a large amount of 
grain, which had been left behind by the fleeing 
citizens. 

They secured the grain, and as they were ford- 
ing a little stream, threw their arms into the wa- 
gons. In an instant hundreds of bullets and ar- 
rows came whizzing from the surrounding thickets. 

All the little company were killed but seven, 
and the stream where they fell is called Bloody 
Brook to this very day. 

Before the Indians could escape. Captain Mosely, 
who was called the Paleface-with-two-heads, be- 
cause he hung his wig on a bush while he fought, 
arrived on the scene, with seventy militia. 


202 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


“ Come, Paleface- with-two-heads,’^ they cried. 

You seek Indians ? You want Indians ? Here are 
Indians enough for you ! ” And they brandished 
aloft the scalp-locks they had taken. 

Mosely stationed his men under a shower of ar- 
rows, and began the struggle with over a thousand 
savages. He was beaten back, but was re-enforced 
by a hundred and sixty Mohegan and English 
troops, and, rallying his men, beat the enemy 
back with great loss. 

When winter set in, and the forests were no longer 
a shelter for ambush, the fortunes of Philip seemed 
on the wane. 

He called the remnant of his forces together, and 
sought aid of his old enemies, the N arragansetts. 

Canonchet was now chief of the Narragansetts. 
He was the son of Miantonomo, whom the Mohe- 
gans had slain ; and when he saw the foes of his 
father, set in battle array by the Palefaces, and 
heard them shouting their triumphs over the now 
desperate Philip, he resolved to aid that unfortu- 
nate king. 

So the warriors of Canonchet, dug up the hatchet, 
painted their faces, and held their war-dance. 

They built a great fort in a swamp at Kingston, 
and within its stout palisades, were five hundred 
wigwams. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


203 


Here the two chiefs united their forces, and plot- 
ted how they might wipe the English from the 
face of the earth. 

In the middle of bleak December, one thousand 
soldiers, under command of Governor Winslow, 
started against the fort at Kingston. One night 
they lay on the ground without shelter, and the 
next morning, stumbled on through snow three 
feet deep. 

The hands of many were frozen, but on they 
marched. 

When they reached the fort, they found that the 
only entrance was over a log, guarded by a block- 
house, from which the Indians began to fire. 

A few brave men leaped on the log, and were 
shot down in an instant. Others took their places, 
and at last, with heavy loss, they reached the en- 
trance. Meanwhile, a weak spot had been found 
on the other side of the palisade. Some climbed 
on each other’s shoulders and scaled the walls, and 
so, from many sides, they entered and began the 
struggle. They fought till sunset, and, under 
cover of a blinding snow, a few hundred warriors 
escaped. 

Then the English set fire to the wigwams, and 
all within them perished — warriors, old men, 
women and children, 


204 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


Cries of horror and rage, resounded from the 
neighboring forest, when those who had escaped 
saw the red flames leaping through the village ; 
and, leaving more than a thousand dead behind, they 
fled through the night, to carry destruction to all 
the English settlements. 

Meanwhile, the Puritans grieved over the part 
that the praying Indians were taking in these trou- 
bles. 

There had long been reason to distrust the hon- 
esty of some. They painted white wampum black, 
that they might sell it at double price ; they tied 
beaver tails on raccoon skins, and sold the peltry 
for beaver ; they shot tame turkeys, and declared 
they were wild ones. 

It was often said, that an Indian back-slider was 
the very meanest Indian in the world. Because 
some were so false, the Puritans were inclined to 
condemn them all, and said their praying should 
be spelled with an “ e.” The dear old pastor, 
Eliot, became very unpopular, because he tried to 
protect his Christians from punishments, which he 
thought undeserved. 

The noble man now collected his bands together, 
and exhorted them to hold true to their faith. He 
did not ask them to take up arms against their own 
tribes. He said he did not think it right to ask 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


205 


them to do that. He only urged them to remain 
quietly in their towns. 

But ties of blood were stronger than those of 
faith, and three weeks after the first attack on 
Swanzey, one whole town of two hundred, deserted 
to the enemy. 

Now, the warriors looked upon the praying In- 
dians as spies. They had not forgotten how Sau- 
samon betrayed Philip to the English. 

And so these praying Indians were in ill repute 
with both red men and white men. 

Some seemed to have richly deserved contempt. 

One, when he had done all the mischief he could, 
delivered his father into the hands of th‘e English, 
that he might save his own life. 

Another, who, perhaps, remembered when he 
had been whipped in Puritan fashion, and set in 
the stocks for misconduct, wore a string of white 
fingers around his neck, which he had cut from the 
dead after a battle. 

It was no wonder that our forefathers were los- 
ing faith in the Indians. 


206 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


CHAPTER XXXIL 

KING CANONCHET. 

After the awful defeat at Kingston, the old men 
were weary of war, and wished to make peace ; 
but the young braves said they would not bow the 
head like an ox to the English yoke ; they would 
tight till the last warrior had shot his last arrow. 

Roger Williams grieved over the fate which 
awaited them. He told the Narragansetts that 
there were ten thousand more white men who 
could carry muskets, and, if all these were slain, 
the Great Father in England could send ten thou- 
sand more. 

But his former friends would no longer listen to 
counsel, and hurried away on their mission of death. 

Philip himself fled to new fields of slaughter. 

We lose nothing but our lives,” he said, “ while 
the white men lose lands, and fine houses, and cat- 
tle.” He was seldom seen in open battle, but hur- 
ried from chief to chief, exciting wrath against the 
common foe. 

He went even to the hated Mohawks on the Hud- 
son. It is said that he slew three Mohawks with 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


207 


his own hand, and reporting that the English had 
slain them, urged vengeance among their kindred. 
But one of his victims lived to tell of his treachery, 
and he was driven out of the Mohawk country. 

In February, 1676, Lancaster, thirty miles from 
Boston, was attacked by a large band of warriors 
under Philip. 

Forty-two persons fled to the house of Mary 
Rowlandson. The house was set on fire, and 
“Quickly,” writes Mrs. Rowlandson, “it was the 
dolefulest day that ever mine eyes saw. Some in 
our house were fighting for their lives ; others 
wallowing in blood ; the house on fire over our 
heads, and the bloody heathen ready to knock us 
on the head, if we stirred out. I took my children 
to go forth, but the Indians shot so thick, that the 
bullets rattled against the house as if one had thrown 
a handful of stones. We had six stout dogs, but 
not one of them would stir. The bullets flying 
thick, one went through my side, and through my 
poor child in my arms.” 

All were massacred or taken prisoners. Mrs. 
Rowlandson and her child were dragged away 
from her home. After many weary miles, they 
went into camp with the Indians. “Down I must 
sit in the snow,” says the poor captive, “ with my 
sick child, the picture of death in my lap. Not 


208 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


the least crumb came within our mouths from 
Wednesday ni^ht to Saturday night, except a lit- 
tle cold water. One Indian, and then a second, 
and then a third, would come and tell me, ‘ Your 
master will quickly knock your child on the head.^ 
This was the comfort I had from them — miserable 
comforters were they all.” 

The child died, and was buried in the snow. 
Mrs. Rowlandson became a servant of Weetamoe, 
queen of Pocasset. Philip went often to the lodge 
of Weetamoe. He was kind to the unhappy white 
slave, and once hired her to make a shirt for his 
little son ; another time he asked her to knit a cap 
for the child. 

It was for the rights of this bright-eyed little 
Indian lad, that the great chieftain was making war 
upon the English usurpers. 

Canonchet, chief of the Yarragansetts, aided 
Philip in all his undertakings. He remembered 
that he was the son of Miantonomo. He was wary 
and vigilant. His warriors knew all the hidden 
paths which led to the English, and as spring came 
on, and the trees were clothed in leaves, they 
dressed themselves in green boughs above the 
waists, and stealing upon the unsuspecting towns, 
put them to the torch. 

The gold of the buttercups was stained ruby- 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


209 


red, and the meadows were damp with the blood 
of their victims. 

But as spring advanced, the fortunes of the In- 
dians began to wane. 

They were without food, and could be traced 
for miles through the woods, where the earth was 
torn up for lily roots and grass roots. 

Unless corn was planted, they would starve to 
death before another winter was over. So the toma- 
hawk was laid aside for the hoe, and the warriors 
scattered about in small bands to farm their land. 

Canonchet started, from the bank of the Con- 
necticut, with thirty men to search for seed corn. 
They had passed through the Pequod country, 
where they stopped at Sachem^s Plain to breathe 
anew their vows of vengeance, and were in the 
centre of their own hunting-grounds, resting in 
their wigwams, when an alarm of Owanuxl was 
given. The chieftain sprang from his couch and 
fled. He was hotly pursued by some English 
soldiers. With the speed of a deer, he ran. His 
blanket was heavy. He threw it away. His sil- 
ver-laced coat choked him, and he tore it off. His 
belt of wampum bound him about the waist ; he 
hurled it far from him, and on he sped. If he 
might only cross yonder stream, he could lose 
himself in the mazes of the forest beyond. 


210 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


The soldiers knew, by the garments on the 
ground, that the fugitive was the great chief of 
the Narragansetts, and followed in more eager 
pursuit. 

At length his foot slipped on a stone at the brink 
of the river, and he fell so that his gun was wet. 

His enemies were upon him, and he made no re- 
sistance. He confessed that he became “like a 
rotten stick — void of strength.” 

But pride did not forsake him. When a beard- 
less young soldier questioned him, he said, with 
lofty contempt, “You are a child. You cannot 
understand matters of war. Let your chief come ; 
him will I answer.” 

He was otfered freedom if he would betray 
Philip. “I will fight it out to the last man,” he 
said, “ rather than become a servant to the Eng- 
lish.” Condemned to death, he said, “I like it 
very well ; for I shall die before my heart is soft, 
or I have spoken anything unworthy of myself.” 

He was shot on the plains of Stonington by 
three chiefs who were allies of the English. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


211 


CHAPTER XXXm. 

WEETAMOE AND ANNAWON. 

Disaster came swiftly upon Philip after the death 
of Canonchet. Many deserted from his standard. 

At last one hundred and fifty of his own people 
were taken, among whom was his own wife, Woo- 
kanuske, and his only child, the pride and joy of 
his heart, for whose sake he had fought against 
such desperate odds. 

“ My heart is broken,” said Philip, “ 1 am ready 
to die.” With a few faithful followers he returned 
to Mount Hope, where the graves of his forefathers 
were. 

Weetamoe attempted to follow him. Of all her 
three hundred braves, only twenty-six were left, 
and these were pursued by the militia, and cut 
down to a man. The wretched queen, in crossing 
the Taunton on a raft, was drowned, and her body 
was washed ashore. 

She had followed Philip in all his fortunes, 
breathing vengeance upon the white men for the 
death of her husband, Alexander. 

The ghastly head of the Indian queen was set 


212 THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 

up on a pole in Taunton, and many Indian captives 
wept when they beheld it there. 

But still Philip was defiant, and when one of his 
warriors advised surrender, he struck him dead at 
his feet. 

Then a brother of the slain warrior led Captain 
Church and his men, through a secret trail, to 
Mount Hope. They arrived at midnight, and 
rested on their arms. 

At dawn, when the Indians saw the sentinels, 
they knew they were betrayed, and rushed from 
their hiding-places. As Philip ran, he was shot 
through the heart by an Indian, and fell forward in 
the waters of a marsh. One of his companions, a 
surly old fellow, hallooed with a loud voice, “ Joo- 
tash ! Jootash ! ” It was Annawon, the great cap- 
tain, calling to his men to fight hardy, as they fled 
through the swamps. 

Philip’s head was brought to Plymouth and set 
up on a pole. 

Some say that Wookanuske and her son were 
sold as slaves, and lived, under the lash, on a rice 
plantation in Barbadoes. Others say they were 
put on board a vessel in Boston Bay, bound for the 
West Indies. They sailed past Cape Cod, and 
ploughed through the waters between Buzzard’s 
Bay and the islands once under the sway of Philip. 


) 



AS PHILIP RAN, HE WAS SHOT THROUGH THE HEART BY AN INDIAN. 





i -I 


I i ‘fe 


w’ 











« t 





OP NEW ENGLAND. 


213 


As the gallant ship skirted the coast of Rhode 
Island, the proud Wookanuske stood on deck with 
her boy. She gazed with wistful eyes at the high, 
white flint rock of Mount Hope, where she so often 
stood with Philip, and the past rose up before her 
like some horrid dream. 

As night came on, she folded the boy to her. 
bosom. ‘‘Pometicum beckons us to the Land of 
Shadows,” she whispered. “ The great Spirit is 
calling us to the Happy Hunting Grounds beyond 
the setting sun ; ” and silently and swiftly they 
passed over the side of the vessel into the waves 
below. 

If neither of these stories be true, we know there 
was only sorrow and despair for the heritage of 
the grandchild of the great chief, Massasoit. 

The aged Annawon was now sachem of the hos- 
tile Indians. 

He had followed Philip’s fortunes to the last, 
and, when his chief was slain, escaped from Mount 
Hope with sixty followers, and took refuge in a 
swamp near Rehoboth. Captain Church sur- 
rounded the swamp, and kept up a siege for sev- 
eral days. The soldiers dared not penetrate the 
gloom among the hemlocks, where their foes were 
lurking. Church suspected that food was carried 
to the fugitives by some hidden path, and set 


214 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


guards to watch. At last an old Indian and his 
daughter were seen paddling across Palmer river. 
They hid the boat in the bushes, and, with heavy 
baskets on their backs, moved cautiously toward 
the swamp where Anna won was concealed. 

They were arrested, and forced to confess that a 
path led to the sachem’s camp. Then Captain 
Church told the Indian that he should guide him 
to the spot. “ I am your slave since my life is in 
your hands,” replied the old man, and led the sol- 
diers into the secret path. It was a long journey. 
Church suspected treachery, and held his gun 
ready to tire upon the guide. 

At last, the old man led the captain to the edge 
of a rocky precipice. There, far below, he saw the 
camp. There were the bark huts, the blazing fires 
where the meats were roasting on spits, the squaws 
busy pounding corn, the firearms near the foot of 
the rock, covered with mats to keep them dry. 

Annawon, with his son, lay on the ground near 
the guns, and the other warriors were scattered 
about at a distance, some idly talking, and others 
fast asleep. Church noted well the situation, and 
then drew back to consult with his captives. 

“No one could enter or leave the swamp except 
by the precipice,” the Indians said. 

Then it was arranged that the old man and his 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


215 


daughter should go in advance, and enter the 
camp in the usual way. Church and his men fol- 
lowed. They marched in single file down the steep 
path, clutching at the tufts of grass and roots of 
shrubs that grew in the clefts of the rocks. 

It was a moment of great risk. If the old man 
yonder, with the basket on his back, should give 
some sign to the Indians below, all would be lost. 

The little band of white men crept down the 
trail, drawing nearer, every moment, to victory or 
death. 

They reached the bottom. Church seized the 
stack of arms and covered the chief with his gun. 
Annawon sprang up, cried Hoioanl^^ sind fell 
back on his couch. His son covered his head in 
the blankets. 

Without weapons they could do nothing. All 
the warriors surrendered. 

have come to eat supper with you,^^ said 
Church. 

The chief called the squaws to prepare a meal 
for their guests. The two leaders supped together. 
Then Church stationed guards about the camp, and 
lay down near the chief. But neither slept. The 
moonlight poured its soft light upon the sleeping 
warriors, and spread, a mantle of silver over the 
higfh cliffs which towered above the hemlocks at 


216 


THE STORY OP THE INDIANS 


their base. No word was spoken. Hours passed, 
but still the leaders lay with eyes wide open. 
Church thought he could not make himself under- 
stood, and his interpreter was sound asleep. 

At last Annawon arose, and silently left the 
camp. He was gone so long that Captain Church 
grew frightened, and prepared for the worst. He 
collected the arms, and lay down close to the chiefs 
son, so that arrows might not reach him without 
first passing over the body of the boy. 

But soon after, Annawon returned. He bore 
a bundle in his hands, and sat down near the 
captain. Then he unrolled the wrappings of skin, 
and showed the treasures of the dead chief, Philip. 

There was a broad belt embroidered in the 
shapes of birds, beasts and flowers, with black and 
white wampum, and a smaller belt edged with 
moose hair, and finished with stars on the ends ; 
two glazed powder horns, and a red blanket. 

Annawon laid these things by the side of Cap- 
tain Church. 

“ These you have now,” he said, in good Eng- 
lish. “ There is no Indian now in all the Land of 
the Bays who is worthy to keep them.” 

The rest of the night was spent in talking. The 
old chief told of the exploits of Philip, and of Mas- 
sasoit, in wars with other tribes, but was careful to 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


217 


avoid all mention of the troubles with the white 
men. 

The following morning, the whole band was 
taken to Taunton, and Annawon was put to death. 
And thus King Philipps war came to an end. 

New England had lost six hundred men. Thir- 
teen towns were destroyed, and forty others had 
been the place of fire and death. Fair women and 
little children had perished, and aching hearts 
were in every home. 

The remnants of the Indian tribes wandered as 
exiles to the North and to the West, where, along 
the lakes and the great rivers, their great Algon- 
quin kinsmen dwelt. 

Many years after, longing to behold their old 
hunting-grounds, and moved by a hate which 
never slept, they guided French war parties to lay 
waste again the fair fields of the English. 


218 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


CHAPTER XXXIV. 

THE CHARTERS. 

When John Winthrop came to the Land of the 
Bays, he brought a charter of liberties, signed by 
the king, which gave to the Puritans of Massachu- 
setts the right to choose their own governor, and 
make their own laws. 

Then Roger Williams, of Providence, went to 
England to secure a charter for his colony of Prov- 
idence. 

And when he returned with the precious docu- 
ment, he was met at Seaconk by the exulting peo- 
ple of Providence, and escorted across the river in 
a triumphal march of fourteen canoes. The air 
was rent by the shouts of his welcome ; for now 
the people, of the future state of Rhode Island, were 
permitted to govern themselves. 

Then the many little towns of Connecticut sent 
delegates to Hartford, to write out a charter for 
themselves. 

And as they wanted to be sure that this charter 
might always be their own, they sent John Win- 
throp, Jr., to England, to secure approval from 
the king. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


219 


He bore a petition from the magistrates, plead- 
ing the rights of the people of Connecticut to the 
land they had bought from the Indians, or won 
with their blood in the wars with the Pequods. 

Winthrop first went to the homes of many no- 
bles, where he was soon a welcome guest. None 
could depict the beauties of the new world better 
than this son of old John Winthrop of Boston, and 
none could win such sympathy for the settlers, who 
had toiled and struggled for the rude homes in 
the wilderness. 

He soon gained the support of the most power- 
ful men in England for his charter, and then went 
to Charles II with his petition. 

When he showed a ring, which had been given 
to his grandfather by Charles I, Winthrop so 
moved the young king, that he granted him all he 
wished. 

So Hartford and Connecticut were united in one 
colony, with a vast tract of land, extending straight 
from Narragansett Bay to the Pacific Ocean. 

The king gave the province, as he would have 
given a jewel, to one who had pleased him with 
some idle tale. 

Young Winthrop bore the precious charter to 
Hartford, where it was stowed away in a box made 
for the purpose. 


220 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


Now, Wirithrop’s talk reminded the king that 
England claimed the country west of the Connect- 
icut, because of the discovery of the Cabots. 

So he gave it to his son, the Duke of York. The 
young prince hastened to take possession of his 
rich province, and sent a fleet to New Amsterdam. 

The Dutch settlers were under the oppressive 
laws of the East India Company, and had long 
looked, with wistful eyes, at the freedom of the Eng- 
lish in Connecticut. So when the English ships 
moored ofl* the Battery, and demanded the surren- 
der of the town, they would not resist. 

Although their governor, Peter Stuyvesant, said 
he would die rather than surrender, and tore 
the letter of terms into pieces, he was compelled 
by the burghers to put the letter together again 
and capitulate. So the English took possession of 
the town of New Amsterdam. They called it New 
York, and sailed up the Hudson, and changed the 
name of Fort Orange to Albany. Then the fleet 
sailed up the Delaware, and took possession of the 
country along its shores. So the country to the 
west of New England became English. 

But it proved to be a sad day for the liberties of 
the colonies, when the royal family became in- 
terested in real estate in America. Sir Edward 
Andros was made governor of New York, and, 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


221 


one hot day in July, crossed over Long Island 
Sound, with the flag of England waving from the 
mast, to read his commission as governor of Con- 
necticut. As he stood on the steps of the Town Hall 
of Saybrook, the captain of the fort told him to stop 
reading the hateful document. Andros insisted 
that his authority extended to the Connecticut. 

“Connecticut has her own charter, signed by 
King Charles,” said the captain, “and, in the 
name of the king, leave off reading, or take the 
consequences.” And, pale with rage, the would- 
be governor was conducted to his ship by the Say- 
brook militia. 

Then, while New England was trying to build 
up new homes from the ashes of King Philipps war. 
King Charles began to wonder much over these 
colonies, who had fought their own battles with 
the Indians, and had even become so bold as to 
coin their own money. Besides, the board of trade 
complained that ships from France and Spain 
brought wares into the harbors of New England 
without paying duty in any English port, so Charles 
sent over Edward Randolph, to inquire into colo- 
nial affairs. 

Now, Randolph bore the seal of the king, and 
assumed the most lordly airs as he went from port 
to port. 


222 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


Governor Leveratt, of Massachusetts, received 
him coldly, kept his peaked hat on in his presence, 
and told him, that, since the colonies had carried on 
the wars with the Indians without help from Eng- 
land, they should be allowed to enjoy the lands 
which had cost so much sorrow and toil. 

Randolph returned to England with a long story 
of the insolence of the colonies, and so prejudiced 
the king, that he ordered Parliament to revoke the 
charter of Massachusetts. So the king claimed the 
country, just as he would a castle in England. All 
titles to houses and lands were swept away. If the 
king wished, he might turn the people out of their 
homes into the streets. 

Charles died soon after this, and his son, James 
II, also claimed Xew England, and sent Sir Ed- 
ward Andros to be governor-in-chief of all the 
Land of the Bays. 

Glittering in scarlet and lace, the new governor 
sailed into Massachusetts Bay, with companies of 
British soldiers to aid him. 

He chose Boston as his headquarters, turned 
officers out, and put in those of his own choosing. 
He put a tax on imported goods, made the law, 
that none could be legally married except by a 
clergyman of the Church of England, and took the 
old South Meeting House for services of that church. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


223 


He told the people their land belonged to the 
king, and they must pay rent for it, and when 
they showed him the deeds which the Indians had 
given, he said they were not worth the scratch of 
a bear’s claw. 

When Andros thought he had Massachusetts 
well under control, he proceeded, at the head of a 
body of troops, to demand the charter of Connect- 
icut. 

All day. Governor Treat pleaded with him to 
leave them the charter until they might have a 
hearing in England. But Andros remembered 
well how he had been sent off by the Connecticut 
militia a few years before. He was haughty, and 
would listen to nothing. 

Night came on. Candles were lighted. A large 
crowd gathered about the building, and as many 
pressed into the room as could get a standing 
place. Some painted Indians stood among the 
throng, and gazed with awe at the gold-bedecked 
messenger from the great king. 

The charter lay with its box on the table. 

Andros, at length, in an angry voice, demanded 
that the 'charter be returned to its box and de- 
livered to him. 

Suddenly the lights went out. There was con- 
fusion and delay, much scraping of tinder j many 


224 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


oh’s ! and ah’s ! some laughs, and some oaths, and 
when, at last, light was made, there was no charter 
in sight. Guards were set about the door, a search 
was made, but no charter could be found. 

It rested securely in the hollow of an old oak- 
tree, and there it long remained. But Andros 
cared nothing about the charter anyway. 

He adjourned the court with his soldiers, and 
thus became governor of all the royal province of 
New England, with his capital at Boston. 

Voting by the ballot was forbidden, town meet- 
ings were dispersed. The public schools were not 
supported, and the people began to say that there 
was nothing left to disgrace them further, except 
to sell them as slaves. 

Meantime, the Indian converts, who still lin- 
gered on the outskirts of Boston, were much per- 
plexed at this state of affairs. They came to Rev. 
Eliot, now very old and feeble, to talk over the 
situation. “No red men have ever obeyed a cow- 
ard,” they said. “ Your sachem is a coward and 
yet you obey him. Is this because you are a 
Christian?” And the dear old man bowed his 
head, but gave no answer. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


225 


CHAPTER XXXY. 

THE ROYAL GOVERNOR. 

Governor Andros did not find his life at Bos- 
ton very pleasant. Sullen faces greeted him in 
the streets. '' Tis the least of our thoughts to 
build a house for the king^s governor/^ said the 
people ; and so he repaired a fort for his residence. 

Meanwhile, the French of the St. Lawrence were 
beginning to erect forts along the English fron- 
tiers. They gained such influence over the In- 
dians that dwelt between New England and New 
France, that the governor went to New Albany, to 
make a treaty with the Iroquois who dwelt be- 
tween the Hudson river and the lakes. 

The people of New England watched all his acts 
with suspicion. They said his visit to New Al- 
bany was to make peace with the French, as well 
as with the Iroquois. French war-ships hovered 
around the coast, and it was rumored, that the 
king intended to sell or trade his American prov- 
inces to the king of France. 

When Governor Andros built some forts on the 
frontier of Maine, and sent six hundred of the 


226 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


bravest militia in mid-winter to garrison them, he 
was accused of wishing to be rid of that many 
soldiers. 

In the midst of this unrest, news came of the in- 
vasion of England by William of Orange. It was 
hoped that the oppressive reign of King Janies 
would soon be over, and bold measures were taken 
against his agent, Andros. Yery early on Thurs- 
day, when the weekly lecture invited a large 
crowd, the town was active. Humor was rife that 
the whole town of Boston was taking up arms. 
When drums beat about nine o’clock, several of 
the governor’s party were seized and thrown into 
jail. The fidelity of the jailer was questioned, and 
“ Scates, the bricklayer,” was stationed in his 
place. Scates was probably a man of muscle, or 
he would not have been chosen for this important 
position. 

Then the old magistrates donned again their 
robes of office, and proceeded to the council cham- 
ber under guard. They spent hours in busy de- 
liberation, and at length appeared in the balcony 
of the Town Hall, before which the masses gathered 
in the street below. They read a document giv- 
ing an account of their oppressions, since the taking 
away of the charter. 

A signal on Beacon Hill had called in corn- 





GOV. ANDROS SURRENDERED AND WAS THROWN INTO PRISON 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


227 


panies of soldiers, and they came hurrying from 
Diixbury, Marshfield, and all the settlements along 
the coast. Soon several hundred soldiers were seen 
beyond Charlestown Neck, who would cross at a call. 

Governor Andros was summoned to give over 
his authority. This was a bold act ; for who knew 
whether the Prince of Orange would succeed in 
his invasion of England ? Should he fail, the peo- 
ple would be shown little mercy by the tyrant, 
James. But the outraged citizens of Massachu- 
setts were determined to place their fortunes with 
those of William of Orange. 

Governor Andros surrendered, and was thrown 
into prison. The royal frigate, in the harbor, was 
dismantled, that it might not bear the news away. 

There is no account but that “ Scates, the brick- 
layer,’’ kept his king’s men safe and sound in the 
common jail ; but the keeper at the fort was not 
so. vigilant. Disguised in woman’s clothes, Andros 
nearly escaped. He safely passed two guards, but 
the third noticed that the old lady’s feet were un- 
commonly large, and arrested her amidst the jeers 
of the crowds on the street, among whom were 
straggling groups of Indians, who joined the sport 
over this “ squaw-sachem ” of the white men. 

Every morning, the sea was scanned for a ship 
bearing some news of England’s fate. 


228 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


At last, a royal ship arrived with orders to pro- 
claim William and Mary king and queen of Eng- 
land. 

Never had there been such rejoicing along the 
bay as this. People flocked from all the country, 
in their best clothes, to celebrate the event. The 
old magistrates were there in official garb. Wilful 
Puritan lasses, who, on this day as on so many 
lesser days, tried the souls of our forefathers by 
their flaunting ribbons, leaned out of the windows, 
above the streets, to toss the May flowers at the 
feet of the stately procession as it passed. The 
gentry, from all the towns, rode on horseback 
through the thoroughfares ; Indians from the 
praying towns, dressed in store clothes, with hair 
cropped oif in Puritan fashion, mingled with the 
throng ; the long troops of horse and foot, the 
busy sheriff and tithing-man, the flocks of won- 
dering school-boys — all joined in the long parade. 

Then there was a great dinner at the Town House 
for the people of quality, and, at night, the streets 
were filled with sounds of joy, until the bell rang 
for bed at nine o’clock. Then the good Puritans 
met around the altars to thank God that He had 
freed them from the oppressor. 

Rhode Island, with delegates at Newport, re- 
stored the government under the charter ; at 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


229 


Hartford, the charter was brought forth from its 
hiding-place, and the governor and magistrates 
took their old posts ; and a day was set for a gen- 
eral thanksgiving, in all the colonies of New 
England. 


230 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


CHAPTER XXXYI. 

THE WITCHES. 

It was the royal pleasure of King William, to 
allow Connecticut and Rhode Island to keep their 
own charters. But a new one was given to Massa- 
chusetts, under which the governor was to be ap- 
pointed by the crown. 

When the royal governor arrived, the coast was 
being again ravaged by the Indians, who still 
dwelt on the northern frontiers. 

In long lines of canoes, they towed rafts, filled 
with pitch, and set them afire among the English 
shipping, as it lay at anchor in the bays. 

Then they paddled swiftly away, and their mock- 
ing laugh sounded far over the waters. 

They danced about the outskirts of the villages, 
and, in the glare of the burning buildings, slaugh- 
tered and tortured their victims like the very imps 
of darkness. 

But just at this very time, there were worse imps 
than Indians within the little Puritan towns. A few 
years before, many witches had been burned at 
the stake in old England, and, some way or other, 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


231 


witches had come across the sea ; whether on the 
broomstick, or in the hold of some ship, where no 
morning prayers were said, no one seemed to know. 
However they came, there they were, in the good 
old Puritan towns. Cotton Mather, of Boston, said 
so, and he was one of the most learned men of his 
time. Samuel Parvis, of Danvers, said so, and who 
preached longer sermons than Samuel Parvis ? 
Sir William Phipps, the royal governor, said so, 
and he represented the king. 

A daughter of a mason, in Boston, had a quarrel 
with a washerwoman over some clothes, and “cried 
out upon her ’’ that she had bewitched her. The 
girPs influence over the younger children of the 
family was such, that she soon had them acting as 
if they were bewitched. The little four-year-old 
added her piping voice, when they all mewed like 
kittens, or barked like dogs, or neighed like horses. 
They crawled on all-fours, tried to climb the walls, 
and then sprang out of the house, and ran away 
like young colts under the lash of some invisible 
master. Sometimes they could not see, and stum- 
bled blindly over the chairs, hurting themselves 
badly ; sometimes they could not hear, and stood 
stupidly about when they were asked questions. 
The hearing was always lost when prayers were 
said, and the seeing when the catechism was to be 


232 


THE STORY OP THE INDIANS 


read. They whistled and screamed at prayers. 
What could it mean, but that the children were 
bewitched ? 

There was, happily, a release from their mis- 
eries at bedtime, and all night long nature built 
up their little bodies for the tortures of the next 
day. 

Ministers of Boston met to fast and pray, to de- 
liver the children from the black charms. The 
wretched washerwoman, who talked fast and long 
in her broken Irish, made things worse and worse, 
in her efforts to right them. Some one testified, 
that some one had said, that she had been seen by 
some one else, to fly down a chimney. She was 
asked to give the Lord’s Prayer in English, but as 
she was a Catholic, she had only learned it in Latin, 
and very badly at that. In the end, the helpless 
woman was convicted of witchcraft, and hanged. 

Cotton Mather was at this time almost a boy, 
just out of college. He became convinced that 
Satan had found out the refuge of Puritans, and 
crossed in the hold of some of the ships. He felt 
it his duty to drive him out, hoof and horns, from 
this chosen Land of the Bays. 

Other children were seized with a nervous desire 
to be under the witches, and under the witches 
they soon seemed to be. Things got worse and 


OP NEW ENGLAND. 


233 


worse. Services in the church, were interrupted by 
the cries of the children. In spite of the tithing- 
man, Ann Putnam cried out in service, “ There is 
a yellow bird sitting on the minister's hat.” 

Physicians declared that the children were well, 
and that it must be the work of witches. There 
was fasting and prayer. 

At last it seemed certain, that three old women 
of Salem were the agents of the evil one. Tituba, 
who was a half Indian and half negro slave from 
the Barbadoes, confessed herself a witch. 

Perhaps she was so excited, that she really 
thought she was. And so the fight about witch- 
craft increased, until a hundred wizards and witches 
lay in jail awaiting their trials. 

One, who was condemned to die, merely looked 
at the meeting-house in Salem, as she was on her 
way to the scaffold, and it was said that straight- 
way a demon tore down a part of it. But others 
thought that some planks in the meeting-house had 
given way, from the great pressure of the, crowds, 
which stood gaping at the unhappy woman as she 
passed. 

Many were so distressed, that they began to be- 
lieve themselves witches, and confessed to riding on 
sticks through the air, and changing themselves into 
animals at night, to prey upon their neighbors^ cattle. 


234 


THE STORY OP THE INDIANS 


Twenty people were hanged on a high hill on the 
outskirts of Salem, fifty obtained pardon by con- 
fessing, and hundreds were accused and suspected 
of witchcraft. 

Whispers went about, that men and women in 
high places were guilty. Lady Phipps, the gov- 
ernor’s wife, was under suspicion of being a witch ; 
several officials of state were accused of using the 
black arts. 

At length, some confessions were proven so false, 
that reason began to return. The fraud, started 
by young girls, ended. Many, who had helped 
to put to death innocent people, had a troubled con- 
science as long as they lived. 

But, after all is said, they had only followed the 
written law in England, which called witchcraft a 
crime punishable with death. If the older coun- 
tries across the sea believed in witches at this time, 
perhaps we should not expect the Puritans to know 
any better. They were surrounded by a vast wil- 
derness, and did not understand the strange sights 
and sounds about them. The awful storms, the 
strange lights in the northern sky, the falling of 
forest trees, made them nervous and anxious, all 
the time. Yet, if -the white men were so easily 
deceived in this new world, how can we wonder at 
the delusions of the red man ? They had always 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


235 


believed in witches, and now the praying towns 
seemed for a time to return to their old heathen 
customs. The neglected powwows were again con- 
sulted, to drive out the witches. They built sacred 
fires with their pine-knots, and threw beads, and 
knives, and hatchets, and skins of snakes, into the 
flames, and, last of all, they threw in the dusky 
witches. It must have seemed like old savage 
times to these “ praying Indians,” as they danced 
and shouted about their victims in the fire. 


236 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


CHAPTER XXXYII. 

ON THE FRENCH FRONTIERS. 

The towns, on the frontiers of Maine and New 
Hampshire, suffered constant attacks from the In- 
dians. 

At Dover, there were five garrison houses, in 
one of which was Major Waldron. He had taken 
four hundred Indian prisoners, at the close of 
King Philip’s war, by the stratagem of a sham 
battle. 

When the muskets of the Indians had been dis- 
charged, he surrounded the warriors with his men, 
made them give up their arms, and sorted out 
about two hundred, who were sent to Boston, to be 
sold as slaves in the West Indies. 

It was now time, after thirteen years, to seek re- 
venge for this deed of the white men. Indian 
women came to Dover, to beg for lodging, during 
one bitter cold night. Then, when all within were 
asleep, the squaws rose from their pallets, un- 
barred the doors, and whistled to the dusky sav- 
ages who lurked among the bushes. 

As they crept stealthily forward, a dog in one 














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MAJ. WALDRON SPRANG FROM HIS BED AND DROVE HIS FOES 
BEFORE HIM WITH HIS SWORD. 



OF NEW ENGLAND. 


237 


house barked, and the inmates seized their arms, 
and defended themselves, but two houses were 
burned, and two were captured. In one of those 
captured, was Major Waldron. 

He was eighty years old, but still strong and 
vigorous. He sprang from his bed, and drove his 
foes before him with his sword. As he turned 
for his musket, one of the Indians struck him on 
the back of the head. 

He was tied to a chair and horribly tortured. 
As each Indian cut with a knife, he cried out, “I 
thus cross out my account. 

Twenty- three white people were killed in Hover. 
Twenty-nine were taken prisoners. Some were 
adopted by the Indians. Their hair was plucked 
from their heads, except the scalp-lock, then they 
were soused in a brook to rinse out the white 
blood, dressed in skins, and taken to a lodge, to 
fill the place of some who had died. Some of the 
captives were sold to the French in Canada, as 
slaves. 

Among those taken, was Sarah Garrish, a beau- 
tiful child, seven years old, the granddaughter of 
Major Waldron. 

She had many adventures on her way to Canada. 

Once her master told her to stand against a tree ; 
then charged his gun as if to shoot her, 


238 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


Another time a squaw pushed her into the river. 
Sarah caught some bushes overhanging the bank, 
and pulled herself out of the water, but she did 
not dare to tell of what had happened. 

One morning, very early, the camp went on their 
way, leaving her fast asleep in the snow. She was 
in a deep forest, where she could hear the cries of 
wild beasts. She knew she could not find her way 
back to the English settlements, and so she rose 
from her bed of snow, and ran in the tracks of the 
Indians, until she overtook them. 

The young Indians were always frightening her, 
and told her she was soon to be burned to death. 

One evening a large fire was built. The Indian 
boys and girls threw on the pine-knots, and ran 
about shouting in high glee, as if they had heard 
a very good piece of news. 

When the flames were very high, Sarah’s mas- 
ter called her to him, and told her she was to be 
burned. 

The poor child threw her arms about the war- 
rior’s neck, and pleaded so hard for her life, that his 
heart was touched, and a few months afterward, she 
was restored to her parents. The war with the 
Indians of the frontiers continued for several 
months. It was very evident that the French were 
urging the Indians to their attacks, and doing all 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


239 


they could to draw away the trade in codfish and 
furs, along the Penobscot and Connecticut rivers. 

At last, the French governor, Frontenac, sent 
out two hundred French and Indian troops to at- 
tack Schenectady, a town of about five hundred 
inhabitants, twenty miles from Albany. It was 
winter. The snow lay deep on the ground. The 
little army traveled on snow-shoes. They threaded 
the forests guided by frozen rivers, and slept at 
night on pine branches. 

Some one in Schenectady said that the gates 
should be guarded that night, but as the inhabi- 
tants looked out over the vast fields of snow, they 
laughed at the idea of any approach, set up snow 
images for sentinels, and retired within their warm 
homes to sleep. 

The party of French and Indians arrived, and 
ran swiftly in at the unguarded gates. The slaugh- 
ter was terrible. 

A few escaped through the deep snow to Albany. 
Those not killed were carried away captive, and 
the glare of burning buildings lighted their path- 
way for many weary miles, as they were driven on, 
loaded with the plunder of their own homes. 

At Haverhill two boys were at work in the fields. 
Their names were Isaac Bradley and J oseph Whit- 
taker. 


240 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


They were hoeing the corn when the Indians 
sprang from the woods and carried them off. 
Isaac was quick to learn, and soon understood all 
the Indians said, though he did not let them know 
this. 

He heard they were soon to be sold to the 
French. He determined to escape. One night, 
when all the Indians lay sound asleep around the 
camp-fires, he awakened J oseph by pinching him 
softly on the ear. He motioned for him to follow, 
and then stole silently over the bodies of the sleep- 
ing men. 

They wandered through deep forests, and just 
as they were thinking they had escaped, they 
heard the shouts of the Indians in pursuit. They 
crawled into a great, hollow log. A dog, running 
ahead of the Indians, traced them to the log, and 
they threw him a piece of dried meat to keep him 
quiet. They hardly breathed as the footsteps 
drew nearer. But the Indians passed on. 

The two boys traveled by night, and hid by day. 
They dug roots for food, and, after six days of 
weary march, came suddenly upon an Indian camp. 
They were greatly frightened at this, but man- 
aged to steal away before they were seen. On 
they wandered, until Joseph could walk no far- 
ther, and lay on the ground to die. Isaac lifted 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


241 


him up in his arms, and staggered on. He was 
just ready to fall under his burden, when he struck 
a path which led to a white trapper’s cabin. Both 
boys were soon restored with food, and, after many 
long months, reached their own homes in Haverhill. 

It was very evident that the French were urg- 
ing the Indians to warfare. 

The attacks on the frontiers of the North contin- 
ued, until the alarm spread throughout all New 
England. Troops were raised for land and sea, to 
make war on the French. 

A fleet of ships conquered Port Royal in Aca- 
dia. Then thirty-two vessels sailed up the St. 
Lawrence to conquer Quebec. But storms came 
on. Snow fell continually. The rocks in the 
river were dangerous for vessels in charge of un- 
skilled pilots. So the fleet turned about for home. 
A high gale struck the prows. One vessel was 
wrecked ; others foundered out in the open sea, 
and others sped away to the West Indies at the 
bidding of the hurricane. 

Over two hundred men were lost, and again the 
coast was clear for the French to ravage the mer- 
chant ships along the English bays. 

Then peace was made between England and 
France. But four years later war broke out 
again. 


242 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


Another fleet, with more than seven thousand 
troops, sailed out of Boston Harbor in July, 1711, 
to conquer Quebec. The vessels lost their way in 
the thick fog of the St. Lawrence. Ten ships 
drifted against ledges of rocks, and went to pieces. 
A thousand soldiers were drowned. 

Soon after this, another treaty of peace was made 
between England and France. Acadia became the 
English province of Nova Scotia by this treaty ; 
yet so great had been the destruction of the war, 
that more than one hundred miles of the sea-coast 
of Maine had not a single English settlement, and 
the canoes of the red men sped undisturbed among 
its many bays. 

But the busy New Englanders built ships and 
wharves, put in factories and mills, and extended 
their commerce more and more. Towns sprang 
up again on the coasts of Maine and New Hamp- 
shire. For twenty years there was peace. 

Then war broke out again with France, called 
King George ^s War, because George II was king 
in England, and again the descendants of King 
Philipps warriors were called to their bloody work 
by the French. They attacked the English settlers 
on all the frontiers of the North. 

Ft. Louisburg, on Cape Breton Island, was the 
chief stronghold of the French. The wide harbor, 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


243 


beneath its walls, was the safe retreat for privateers, 
who plundered the merchant ships of 'New Eng- 
land. The people said they should lay their heads 
together to capture this fort, or they would soon 
not be able to carry on any commerce. 

Connecticut, 'New Hampshire and Rhode Island 
sent men and ships to Boston Harbor, and soon 
one hundred vessels set their sails for Louisburg. 
It was a great fleet. The red men crouched be- 
hind the rocks on the shore, and watched it disap- 
pear in the distance. They feared for the fate of 
their allies, and well they might. 

After a siege of seven weeks, the great fortress 
surrendered, with all its cannon, and two thousand 
men. 

There was joy in the colonies over this victory, 
which seemed to promise that the cruel wars would 
soon be over. 

Boston Harbor was gay with ships flying their 
colors, and the batteries kept up a loud booming 
of guns. In the evening there was a bonfire on 
Boston Common, and curious fireworks were 
thrown up. In all New England there was re- 
joicing and festivities over the victory of Louis- 
burg. 


244 


THE STORY OP THE INDIANS 


CHAPTER XXXYIII. 

PIRATES. 

While the canoes of red savages clung to the 
coast, the ships of white outlaws scoured the high 
seas. 

From the time of Sir Francis Drake, pirates had 
infested the coasts of America. 

There was an ideal cove in Tortuga, where a law- 
less crew hid their plunder, and darted out to sea 
like sharks, to rob the passing ships. Their dress 
was a shirt and trousers, dipped in the blood of 
animals they killed. They wore shoes without 
stockings, a hat without a brim, and a leather gir- 
dle, from which hung a knife. Their vessels were 
boats made from the trunks of trees. 

They were called buccaneers, from the way they 
roasted an ox. And soon the name buccaneer was 
given to all who followed after their evil ways. 

When there were no Spanish galleons in sight, 
they plundered ships, loaded with cotton, sugar, 
tobacco and rice, from the West Indies, and sold 
these cargoes for round Spanish dollars. 

A cargo of dried cod, a few hundred packs of 


OP NEW ENGLAND. 


245 


beaver and mink skins, or a load of ship-timber, 
found ready sale in the seaports of Europe ; and 
so the colonial ships were much sought by the 
buccaneers. 

Many stories are told of their revels. 

Once some buccaneers captured a vessel, laden 
with horses, from Rhode Island. They went on 
board, made a raid on the larder, and, when well 
heated with rum, led the horses on deck, mounted 
and rode backwards and forwards, shouting and 
lashing, until the animals careered about with such 
frenzy that two or three of the madmen were 
thrown from their backs. 

Then they leaped up in a rage, and fell upon the 
crew with their sabres, declaring they deserved 
death for not bringing boots and spurs, without 
which no man might be expected to ride well. 

At one time, all the coast of New England was 
under the sway of Blackboard. 

This noted pirate received his name from the 
lonof, black beard which he twisted with ribbons 
into small black tails, and turned about his ears. 

He usually appeared with three brace of pistols 
hanging to a scarf on his shoulders, and at night 
stuck lighted matches under his hat, which, with 
his fierce black eyes, gave him a very wild aspect, 
indeed. 


246 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


The very mention of Blackbeard kept many a 
little New Englander wide awake for hours in the 
night. 

His men landed at any of the ports they wished ; 
they swaggered through the streets, picking quar- 
rels with the people, and none dared to seize them, 
for fear of endangering the town. 

Ships from Boston were scuttled ; sloops from 
Connecticut, bearing cattle and sheep, were board- 
ed ; scows from Rhode Island were towed away 
to South American markets. 

Captain Blackbeard was no respecter of flags, 
and plundered all ships alike. He seemed to like 
one nation about as well as another, and chose in- 
lets along all coasts, where he pitched his tents and 
repaired his ships. 

“ Come down into the hold, my merry men, and 
wedl have a little fire and brimstone of our own,” 
he once cried, when no sail was in sight, and time 
hung heavily on his hands. 

With hatches shut down, this jolly captain lighted 
some pots of brimstone. 

His own lungs were like leather, and he drank 
in the fumes of the sulphur, as if they were the 
dainty breath of a rose ; and if any of his unfortu- 
nate mates fell to coughing or sneezing, they were 
straightway rapped on the head. 



THE PIRATES. 








OF NEW ENGLAND. 


247 


Sneezing, coughing and howling with pain, the 
crew rushed at last for the hatchway ; but there 
stood the captain, with a brace of pistols in each 
hand, and shot them down without respect to per- 
sons. 

Another amusement of this jolly pirate was to 
make his prisoners walk a plank stuck out over 
the side of the vessel. Since nothing but death 
awaited them at either end of the plank, they al- 
ways chose the mercy of the waves. 

Most of Blackboard’s time was put in, cruising 
between Jamaica and the colonies. 

At last, he met his fate in the person of an Eng- 
lish officer, who, after a fierce fight, seized the 
captain and his crew, and sailed into harbor with 
the head of Blackboard nailed to the bowsprit. 

Then there was Captain Tew, of ISTew York, who 
won a fortune on the sea, and then retired to Rhode 
Island, to live in princely style off his plunder, till 
the old fever came on again, and he was shot in a 
sea-fight. 

And there was Captain Avery, who robbed 
Moorish ships, and hid his booty in Boston. Then, 
for safer keeping, he took his gold and silver plate 
to England, and, being discovered, never dared to 
claim the treasure from the deposit vaults. 

And there was Captain Low, who took delight 


248 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


in the torture of his merchant captives. He hated 
all men in New England, and seizing the crew of 
a merchant ship of New York, tortured them with 
burning matches, tied between their fingers. 

He whipped the naked crew of a whaling vessel, 
off the coast of Maine, and made the master eat his 
own ears, with pepper and salt. 

Besides the buccaneering off the coast of New 
England, the wars between New England and New 
France caused much privateering. Now, priva- 
teering was thought to be only a war on the sea. 
To capture and plunder each other’s vessels, and 
take the crews prisoners, was a good way to weaken 
the enemy. 

Once a fleet of seven sail of French privateers, 
ran down from Louisburg, at the mouth of the St. 
Lawrence, captured Nantucket, Martha’s Vine- 
yard, and Block Island, and lay in wait for Eng- 
lish ships. 

The harbor of Newport was a favorite resort for 
them in winter. The white savages seemed worse 
than the red ones, and kept the country in a state 
of constant terror. Many settlers took what they 
had in Hartford, and the towns along the coast, and 
sought homes out of reach of the sea rovers. 

Rhode Island prepared to defend her commerce. 
Seven high watch-towers were erected ; heavy guns 


OF NEW England. 


249 


were placed on Block Island. Then many Engdish 
privateering vessels were fitted up in New England. 

But, strange to say, it very often happened that 
when a merchant put cannon at his loopholes, re- 
ceived a commission from his governor to capture 
the French vessels, and sailed away, breathing ven- 
geance on the pirates, and promising to bring back 
the head of the last one of them, he also turned 
pirate himself, and was soon off in the Spanish 
Main, coasting for any ship that might bring plun- 
der. This turning of privateers into pirates be- 
came notorious ; and, what seemed worse yet, the 
fisherfolk along the coast were tempted to harbor 
these English pirates, and divide the spoils with 
them. At first they did this with a very good con- 
science. They said the French were enemies, and 
it was the duty of patriotic citizens to impoverish 
the French. 

But when the cargoes were bales of raw silk, 
and chests of opium, jewels and perfumes from In- 
dia, they learned to ask no questions about what 
ships had been seized. 

Now, all this plundering raised a great scandal 
among the staid Puritans of New England. 

And when King William heard of it, he said 
it was a disgrace to his colonies, and must be 
stopped. 


250 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


So proclamations were published by drum-beats 
through every town, requiring officers to arrest 
suspected pirates, and warning people not to har- 
bor any such, on pain of punishment. 

Then the New England governors looked about 
for a man who could best make war on English 
privateers who had turned pirates, and Captain 
Kidd seemed the very best man they could find. 

He had been commander of a merchant vessel 
sailing between New York and London. He was 
celebrated for his skill, and knew most of the men 
who were rovers of the sea. 

So Captain Kidd was put in command of the 
Adventure, a cruiser with thirty guns, and set sail 
from Plymouth, under the great seal of the admiral. 

“ Ho, for the pirates ! ” was the song at the wheel, 
as the crew sailed out of Plymouth harbor. 

Kidd cruised around for a year, and, not finding 
any privateers worth running down, set his sails 
for the Red Sea, and turned pirate himself. 

He plundered Moorish ships otf the coast of 
Madagascar, and ravaged the Indian Ocean, from 
the Red Sea to Malabar. Then he returned to 
Rhode Island, to store away his treasures. For 
many years he preyed on the commerce of all na- 
tions, and hid his plunder on the islands of Nar- 
ragansett Bay. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


251 


He used to hide himself and his vessel among 
the curious rocks in Sachem Head Harbor, and 
there, to this day, is the hollow stone, called Kidd^s 
Punch Bowl, where, tradition declares, he used to 
carouse with his men. 

Never, in the old days, was a band of Indian war- 
riors at Sachem Head more lawless than Captain 
Kidd and his crew. 

Once they landed on Gardener’s Island, and re- 
quested a supper of Mrs. Gardener. The good 
woman, fearing the displeasure of the sea-robber, 
roasted a pig in her very best style. As a reward for 
the toothsome meal she prepared, Kidd presented 
his hostess with a cradle-blanket of cloth-of-gold. 

Another time he buried a curious casket of jew- 
els on Gardener’s Island. 

Now, the king had sent word to the governors 
of all the colonies, to arrest Captain Kidd, if ever 
he should return to his old haunts ; but the com- 
mand was easier to give than to execute. 

Kidd hovered about the lovely bay of Narragan- 
sett, like the moth about a candle ; people said it 
was because he had such vast treasure hidden 
there. At last he ventured into Rhode Island, 
and was captured. He was taken to Boston. Then 
he was sent to London, where he was tried, con- 
demned and hanged. 


252 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


But for many years he still lived in the minds 
of the simple fisherfolk of New England. 

When the winds were high, and the tides swept 
in, they fully believed that the coast was haunted 
by Captain Kidd and his crew. 

As for the Indians who dwelt on Nantucket and 
the neighboring islands, where the pirate ship 
sailed past, when they heard of helpless sailors 
tortured and thrown overboard to the whales, they 
shuddered with fear, and drew closer the mats at 
the doors of their wigwams. 

“ Why,’’ they said, “ do white men talk so much 
about the cruelty of red men ! ” 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


253 


CHAPTER XXXIX. 

FRENCH AND INDIAN WARS. 

The United Colonies of Xew England were kept 
very busy with Indians and charters, witches and 
pirates. 

They found little time to watch the growth of 
their neighbors. 

Meantime, many thousands from Europe had 
sought new homes to the south of them, until Xew 
Jersey, Pennsylvania, Maryland, Yirginia, Xorth 
Carolina, South Carolina, and Georgia became 
large colonies, with governors of their own. 

Xow, the colonies of the Xorth knew very little 
about the colonies of the South. 

Vast forests and marshes and deep rivers lay 
between them, and hostile Indians dwelt there, 
so that no white man dared travel between the two 
sections by land. 

By sea, it took longer to go from Boston to 
Jamestown than it takes now to go to London. 

Sometimes news was brought into the seaport 
towns of Indian wars in Virginia, or Spanish wars 
in Georgia ; but these events always seemed to 
have happened far away in some foreign land. It 


254 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


was the talk of the taverns at night, and forgotten 
the very next day. 

But the time came when the scattered English 
colonies knew one another very well. 

Common dangers drew them closer and closer 
together, until they united so firmly that nothing 
could ever separate them again. 

First, they came to know each other better, be- 
cause of the lands beyond the Alleghany moun- 
tains. Their charters gave them these lands. To 
be sure, they knew nothing about them, but they 
became restless, penned up within the narrow strip 
of land on the sea-coast, and began to look over the 
lofty mountain peaks, behind which the sun went 
down every night. They saw tangled forests and 
great rivers, and many tribes of red men and 
herds of wild game, of which they had never even 
heard the names. 

They were astonished to see what a foothold the 
French had secured, in these lands which they 
themselves claimed. 

The French had planted missions and trading- 
posts along the St. Lawrence, the great lakes and 
the Mississippi, and were already planning a vast 
empire to stretch from the mouth of the St. Law- 
rence to the mouth of the Mississippi, The whole 
country was a paradise for traders. It was said 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


255 


there were enough furs to furnish every pauper in 
England a beaver jacket, and that gold and silver 
were to be had for the digging. 

When King George heard how his old enemies, 
the French, were taking away the territory claimed 
by the English, he resolved to occupy the lands 
with his own subjects. 

So, in 1749, he promised a large tract of land, 
on the Ohio river, to any company which would 
plant a colony of one hundred persons there. The 
Ohio Company began to send out settlers immedi- 
ately ; but before they could establish themselves, 
three hundred French soldiers took possession of 
the valley. Both nations now proceeded to build 
forts in the disputed territory. Deep in the for- 
ests they stood, and the Indians gazed up at their 
frowning walls with dread, as they glided past in 
their birch canoes. At their council fires, the wa- 
riors exclaimed in rage : 

“ Why do not the Palefaces settle their quarrels 
on their own land, or upon the sea, instead of here 
in our forests ! ” Yet they were powerless to keep 
out the intruders. 

Meanwhile, delegates from Kew England met at 
Albany, with other delegates from New York, 
Pennsylvania and Maryland, and made a treaty 
with the Iroquois Indians, 


256 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


Now the French had all the Indians as their 
friends, except these Iroquois, and the reason of 
their hostility happened in this way. When Samuel 
Champlain discovered the St. Lawrence, theHurons 
dwelt north of the river, and were at war with the 
Iroquois, who dwelt south of them. When they 
saw the wonderful white man with his wonderful 
gun, they asked him to help them in their war 
with the Iroquois. Champlain did not know how 
powerful this enemy was, and consented to go 
with the Hurons. 

So, on the shores of Lake Champlain, he fired 
into the Iroquois. They were in a great panic 
immediately. They heard the noise, saw their 
men fall about them, looked once at the Paleface 
in shining armor, and fled like a flock of sheep be- 
fore a wolf. Champlain returned to France. But 
the Iroquois never forgot the French for this 
shame they had brought upon them. 

They bought guns of the Dutch, and for many 
years guarded all the passes to the rich beaver 
lands of the Ohio. 

They captured the transports of furs which the 
French traders had bought, and kept the western 
Indians in such a fright, that trade was greafly 
impaired. 

And so it happened that, when the delegates 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


257 


from the English colonies met the Iroquois at Al- 
bany, they found these Indians ready to enter into 
an alliance to fight their old enemies, the French. 

In the spring of 1755, General Edward Brad- 
dock came over from England with British troops, 
and the English and French were again at war 
with each other. French officers in gold lace, 
trappers in doeskin, priests in their black robes, 
soldiers in the white uniform of the French king, 
gathered on the banks of the St. Lawrence. Eng- 
lish grenadiers in red coats, Scotch Highlanders in 
plaids, and colonial troops in homespun, rallied 
from all the frontiers. Bub-a-dub-dub, rub-a- 
dub-dub, beat the drums, and the fife resounded 
among all the hills of New England. Garrets 
were ransacked for great-grandfathers’ swords, 
rusted with the blood of King Philip’s wars. The 
rattle of arms, the tread of soldiers, and the hur- 
rahing of street boys, were heard in the towns 
from morning till night. Indians joined each side 
in war-paint and feathers, burning with the hate 
of over a hundred years. 

There were many exploits worthy of recital 
here. Frowning forts were scaled, swollen rivers 
crossed and forests cut down. In the far west the 
the names of Washington, Stark, Putnam and Rog- 
ers were spoken in praise, for their daring deeds, 


258 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


Meanwhile, on the coast of New England, a trag- 
edy was taking place. 

Nova Scotia, which the English colonies had 
captured forty years before, had been nearly for- 
gotten. 

The simple French peasants dwelt in their old 
houses, as they had done before the fort in the 
harbor was taken. They reclaimed the wild lands 
from the forest and ocean. Meadows were covered 
with flocks, and fields of waving grain furnished an 
abundance of food. Matrons and maids were busy 
at the spinning-wheel, and the few luxuries were 
bought in exchange for furs or grain. 

And so they lived, in a simple, honest fashion, 
busy with the common toils of the day. 

They loved the language and the religion of 
their forefathers. They had their parish priests, 
and settled their own disputes among themselves. 

No wars came to weaken them, and, at the time 
of this French and Indian war, there were sixteen 
thousand Acadians in Nova Scotia. 

“ What should be done with these Frenchmen ? ” 
asked the people of New England. There they 
were at the mouth of the St. Lawrence. They 
might join their countrymen and make war on the 
colonies. 

They would, at least, furnish food to the French 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


259 


garrisons across the bay. So they were forced to 
surrender their boats and firearms. 

But still the Acadians were a thorn in the side 
of New England. What should be done with 
them ? 

To fortify the island would require money and 
men. At last it was decided to drive them from 
their homes, and scatter them through the colonies. 

Governor Lawrence, with his New England 
troops, sailed to the North, and captured the two 
French forts on the narrow neck, which separated 
Nova Scotia from Canada. 

Then he ordered all the Acadians to come to- 
gether in the different towns. They went without 
arms : for they had none. 

At Grand-Pre, four thousand and eighteen 
Frenchmen were marched into church. 

Then, they were told by an officer, that they 
were the prisoners of the English king, who com- 
manded them to leave Acadia forever. 

A cry of horror arose from the wretched men, 
which was answered by the waiting women and 
children outside the church, who feared, they 
knew not what. Ships lay waiting in the harbor. 

The young men were ordered to embark first. 
There was no use to rebel. The soldiers were be- 
side them with pointed bayonets. They marched 


260 THE STORY OP THE INDIANS 

from the church to the vessels, between lines of 
weeping women. Then the old men went next. 
The vessels were filled and sailed away. No one 
knew to what ports they went. 

The women and children remained behind in 
the bitter cold weather, suffering for food and shel- 
ter, until the ships came back to bear them away 
to exile. 

Seven thousand French people were thus scat- 
tered throughout the American colonies. 

One thousand were landed in Massachusetts. 
There they stood in a strange land. They could 
not speak a word of the English language. They 
needed food, clothing, and a place to rest, after the 
long sea voyage. But crowds of thoughtless boys 
teased them, as you see them do to-day, when for- 
eign immigrants land at Castle Garden. It was a 
heart-rending scene as these thrifty French people, 
who had owned homes of their own, were scat- 
tered among the alms-houses, or made servants in 
the kitchens of their masters. Many families were 
never reunited. Mothers mourned their children ; 
wives mourned their husbands. 

Some escaped from the colonies in boats, and 
coasted northward toward their old homes ; but 
they were soon seized, and forced to go ashore 


OP NEW ENGLAND. 


261 


Their cattle, sheep and horses were taken by the 
English officers. Their lands in Acadia went hack 
to the first wilderness. Dikes were broken in by 
the ocean. Orchards were choked by thickets ; 
the thatched roofs of cottages fell in from decay. 

And as the Indian trappers wandered over the 
deserted lands, they sadly said, “ All must perish, 
even Paleface brothers, who stand in the path of 
the English.’^ 


262 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


CHAPTER XL. 

THE LAST INDIANS OF NEW ENGLAND. 

Scotch Highlanders, English red-coats, and 
American troops, in homespun, drove the French 
and Indians from the western forts, until at last 
only Montreal and Quebec remained to he con- 
quered. 

A great armament, under command of Greneral 
Wolfe, sailed past the bays of Xew England on its 
way to the capital of the French. 

There were twenty- two ships-of-line, and as 
many frigates and armed vessels, and eight thou- 
sand men, were borne through the waves to meet 
victory or death. Pennons were streaming, oars 
were flashing, and white sails were unfurled to 
the breeze, as they moved past the towns by the 
sea. 

Weeks passed. One day, a ship with red stream- 
ers sailed swiftly into Boston harbor, and brought 
the news of the surrender of Quebec. The key of 
Canada had been taken ! Montreal surrendered a 
few months later, and at last the cruel French and 
Indian wars were over. 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


263 


There was joy throughout the colonies. Bon- 
fires blazed on every hill. Newspapers scattered 
the news. 

The American people were grateful to England 
for aid in the war, and erected monuments to the 
king and to the generals, who had lost their lives 
in defense of English soil in America. 

The legislatures, of the different states, vied with 
each other in eulogies. They called Gieorge II 
the “ Scourge of Tyrants, and the Hope of the 
Oppressed.” 

There was sorrow for the dead, and pity for 
the living who were crippled for the rest of their 
lives. 

But there was peace once more in all the land. 
The plow again turned up the rich soil for the 
golden grain. The wheels went round. The ships 
sped over the ocean without fear of privateers. 

Bhode Island alone, soon had one hundred and 
eighty -four vessels bound for foreign parts, and 
three hundred and fifty for the coasting trade, and 
all the bays were white with the sails of ships from 
every sea. 

England began to say that the colonies of Amer- 
ica were the fairest jewels in the crown. 

Nearly eighty years had passed since the last 
remnants of King Philip’s wars had guided the 


264 


THE STORY OE THE INDIANS 


French to the towns of New England. The war- 
riors of one generation had read the wampum belts 
of the generation that had gone. They had found 
sweet revenge as they followed the warpath to the 
English, over the hidden trails of their forefathers. 

But now the last battle was over. The last 
scalp was taken. The dusky warriors withdrew 
from the rivers, ponds, and hunting-grounds, in 
the Land of the Bays, and pushed farther to the 
west. 

At the close of the war, there were ninety fami- 
lies on the island of Nantucket. But in a few 
months, over two hundred persons died from a ter- 
rible disease. At the same time, the famous blue- 
fish disappeared from the coves of the island. The 
natives saw, in this, a gloomy omen of their own 
end. They abandoned their churches, and soon 
a straggling little band, broken in spirit and 
wasted in body, was all that was left of the thou- 
sands who had formerly dwelt on Nantucket. 

The Mount Hope of Massasoit, which had fallen 
to Plymouth, by conquest, was sold to four Boston 
merchants, and the Wampanoags were seen there 
no more. 

The last remnants of the proud Narragansetts 
dwelt near Charlestown, Bhode Island. 

There, on a neighboring hill, was the burial- 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


265 


place of their kings. Toward the morning sun 
was the dark mass of hemlocks, near which Canon- 
chet had fallen. Near by, in Sachem’s Plain, 
towered the high pile of stone, beneath which 
proud, young Miantonomo found release from the 
insults of the Palefaces. 

In Massachusetts, the few Indians in the pray- 
ing towns hired out as servants, or wandered about 
as vagrants. They married among the negroes, 
and soon were known no more as a race. 

In Connecticut, a few red men still dwelt on 
their own lands ; but no scalps hung in their wig- 
wams, no squaw pounded the corn as of yore, no 
deer lurked in the forest. The wigwams of skins 
were changed to shanties of pine, and the sons of 
famous warriors cut firewood, and peddled baskets, 
from village to village. 

In New Hampshire, where the mountains tower 
above the blue lakes, dwelt Chocorua, the last chief 
of his tribe. When he had buried his wife by the 
side of the brook, all that was left to him was his 
little son. 

One day the boy visited the home of Mr. Camp- 
bell, and died very soon after. The chief was 
frantic in his grief. He brooded over his loss, un- 
til he was convinced that his son had been poisoned, 
and he resolved to avenge his death. 


266 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


One night, when Mr. Campbell returned from 
his work in the field, he found all his family dead. 
They had been scalped in the most brutal manner. 
Chocorua had been there. The white settlers 
banded together in pursuit. They found the 
chieftain standing on the brow of a high cliff. He 
stood like some stone image far above his ene- 
mies. 

“ Throw yourself down from the cliff, or we 
shoot,’’ shouted the men below. No answer came 
back. Again the men called, and pointed their 
muskets. “ I shall not throw my life away at the 
bidding of any white man,” cried out the chieftain, 
in broken English. 

His pursuers sent a volley of shot up the moun- 
tain. The lonely chieftain stood erect for a moment, 
stretched out his hands, and pronounced an awful 
curse upon the white men who had destroyed his 
race. Then the last of the New Hampshire tribe 
fell on his face. It is tradition, that the trees, at 
the base of this mountain, withered, meadows lay 
parched like a desert, brooks dried up, cattle died 
of disease, and the white settlers moved away 
from the spot which was cursed by the chieftain, 
Chocorua, 

A few years later, an Indian chief returned from 
the far west to visit his old hunting-grounds. He 



DEATH OP CIIOCORUA. 






7 




OF NEW ENGLAND. 


267 


came to New York City, and seemed much de- 
jected as he looked out over the beautiful bay. 

“ I have been looking at your great city,’’ he 
said, “ and see how happy you all are. But, then, 
I cannot help thinking that this fine country, and 
this great water, was once ours. It was the gift 
of the great Spirit to our ancestors, and to their 
children. 

“ At last the white people came in a great ca- 
noe. They asked only to tie the canoe to a tree, 
lest the waters should carry it away. Then they 
said some of their people were sick, and asked per- 
mission to land them, and put them under the 
shade of the trees. The ice came, and they could 
not go away. They begged for a piece of land, 
to build wigwams for the winter. Then they 
asked for some corn, to keep them from starving, 
and promised to go away when the ice was gone. 

“ When spring came, we told them they must go 
away with their big canoe ; but they pointed to 
the great guns around their wigwams, and said 
they would stay there. We could not make them 
go away. 

“Afterwards, more came. They brought fire- 
water with them, of which the Indians became very 
fond. They persuaded us to sell them some land. 
They drove us back, from time to time, into the 


268 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


wilderness, far from the water and the fish and the 
oysters. 

“ They have destroyed the game. Our people 
have wasted away ; we, who live, are miserable and 
wretched, while you are rejoicing over your free 
and beautiful country. This makes me sorry, 
brethren, and I cannot help it.’’ 

“When you came over the morning waters,” 
said one sachem of Massachusetts, “ we took you 
into our arms, we fed you with our best meat. 
Never went white man cold and hungry from an 
Indian wigwam.” 

But the red men and the white men could not 
dwell together. 

In Maine, one of the Kennebec tribes settled on 
a grant of land with several white men. He was 
not ill-treated ; but there was a deep-seated preju- 
dice against him, and he felt a stranger in their 
midst. His only child died. No neighbors came 
near to help him with the last sad rites of burial. 
Shortly after, he called at the home of one of the 
settlers. He bore traces of great grief and sadly 
said : “ When the white man’s child die, Indian 

very sorry. He help bury him. He shed tears. 
When Indian child die, no one speak. I make his 
grave alone. I can no live here.” 

And he gave up his farm, dug up the body of 


OF NEW ENGLAND. 


269 


his child, and carried it two hundred miles through 
the forests, to join the Canadian Indians. 

When another Indian was asked to settle in one 
of the white towns, he shook his head. “ Here I am, 
deaf and dumb,’’ he said, “ I do not talk your lan- 
guage. I can neither hear, nor make myself 
heard. When I walk through your busy streets, 
I see every person in his shop. One makes shoes, 
another liats, a third sells cloth, and every man 
lives by his labor. I can not do one of these 
things. I can make a bow, catch fish, kill game 
and go to war ; but none of these things is of any 
use to me here.” 

“We are driven back until we can retreat no 
farther,” said another old warrior. “ Our hatchets 
are broken, our bows are snapped, our fires are 
nearly extinguished. A little longer, and the 
white man shall cease to persecute us, for we shall 
cease to exist.” 

The last tribute of wampum had been paid. 
The white men had now the pine shilling, and the 
gold and silver from the mint of England, in re- 
turn for the products of the soil. 

They built their log cabins in the edge of the 
forests, until the Indians fled beyond the great 
Father of Waters. 

The red men of New England left no lofty 


270 


THE STORY OF THE INDIANS 


ruin behind them. Only a few arrow-heads and 
strings of wampum, dug up by the plow, a few 
names of mountains, streams and valleys, remain 
to tell of the once proud race that roamed in the 
Land of the Bays. 


THE END. 



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